Natalie Micco, Shelby Althuizen

Ms. Gardner
English 10, Period 4
17 September 2014

Sonnet 54Elegant conceit to a rose to create an image of beauty and youth.

Beauty seems even sweeter because of how truthful the ornament is.

(a)O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,

(b)By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
(a)The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
(b)For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
(c)The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
(d)As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
(c)Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
(d)When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
(e)But, for their virtue only is their show,
(f)They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
(e)Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
(f)Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
(g) And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
(g)When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth. Calming diction in the first
quatrain provides a soothing atmosphere for readers compared to the dramatic diction in the
second quatrain.