The Sonnets

When I have seen by Timeʼs fell hand defacʼd

The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-razʼd,

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.