My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;

The worm, the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: On my Thirty-sixth Year.

The chariest maid is prodigal enough,

If she unmask her beauty to the moon:

Virtue itself'scapes not calumnious strokes:

The canker galls the infants of the spring

Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,

And in the morn and liquid dew of youth

Contagious blastments are most imminent.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.