| 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 | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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. |