The Sonnets XCIX - The forward violet thus did I chide
By William Shakespeare
The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my loves breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my loves veins thou hast too grossly dyd.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stoln thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stoln of both,
And to his robbery had annexd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet, or colour it had stoln from thee.