Shakespeare's Sonnets (1883)/Sonnet 64

by William Shakespeare

For other versions of this work, see Sonnet 64 (Shakespeare).

LXIV.

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded, to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate—
That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death which cannot choose

But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.