Here take my picture; though I bid farewell <br />Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell. <br />'Tis like me now, but I dead, 'twill be more <br />When we are shadows both, than 'twas before. <br />When weather-beaten I come back, my hand <br />Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun beams tann'd, <br />My face and breast of haircloth, and my head <br />With care's rash sudden storms being o'erspread, <br />My body'a sack of bones, broken within, <br />And powder's blue stains scatter'd on my skin; <br />If rival fools tax thee to'have lov'd a man <br />So foul and coarse as, oh, I may seem then, <br />This shall say what I was, and thou shalt say, <br />'Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay? <br />Or do they reach his judging mind, that he <br />Should now love less, what he did love to see? <br />That which in him was fair and delicate, <br />Was but the milk which in love's childish state <br />Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough <br />To feed on that, which to disus'd tastes seems tough.'<br /><br />John Donne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elegy-v-his-picture/
