- 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.