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.

LXV

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? 
O! how shall summer’s honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays? 
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid? 
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? 
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? 
  O! none, unless this miracle have might,
  That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

LXVI

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly—­doctor-like—­controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall’d simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill: 
  Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,
  Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

LXVII

Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace itself with his society? 
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steel dead seeming of his living hue? 
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true? 
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
Beggar’d of blood to blush through lively veins? 
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And proud of many, lives upon his gains. 
  O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had
  In days long since, before these last so bad.

LXVIII