Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 64
64
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; 4
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; 8
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. 12
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
2 rich-proud . . . age: costly and splendid tombs or monuments
3 sometime: once, formerly
4 brass eternal slave: eternal brass the slave
9 state: condition of things
10 state itself: grandeur
13 which: this thought which