Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 63
63
Against my love shall be, as I am now,
With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;
When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn 4
Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;
And all those beauties whereof now he's king
Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring; 8
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age's cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life: 12
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
And they shall live, and he in them still green.
1 Against: when, in anticipation of the time when
5 steepy: steep, surmounted with difficulty
10 confounding: destroying
12 though: though he cuts