Canker and Bud

Sonnet, [70]. “That thou art blam’d shall not be thy defect,/ For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair;/ The ornament of beauty is suspect,/ A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air./ So thou be good, slander doth but approve/ Thy worth the greater, being woo’d of time,/ For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,/ And thou present’st a pure unstained prime./ Thou hast pass’d by the ambush of young days,/ Either not assail’d, or victor being charg’d;/ Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise/ To tie up envy evermore enlarg’d./ If some suspect of ill mask’d not thy show,/ Then thou alone kingdomes of hearts shouldst owe.”