Not marble, nor the gilded monumentsOf princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,But you shall shine more bright in these contentsThan unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.When wasteful war shall statues overturn,And broils root out the work of masonry,Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn:The living record of your memory.’Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmityShall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,Even in the eyes of all posterityThat wear this world out to the ending doom.So till the judgment that your self arise,You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,So do our minutes hasten to their end,Each changing place with that which goes before,In sequent toil all forwards do contend.Nativity once in the main of light,Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,Crooked eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.And yet to times in hope, my verse shall standPraising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
64
When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’dThe rich proud cost of outworn buried age;When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras’dAnd brass eternal slave to mortal rage;When I have seen the hungry ocean gainAdvantage on the kingdom of the shore,And the firm soil win of the wat’ry 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 chooseBut weep to have that which it fears to lose.
66
Tired with all these for restful death I cry,As to behold desert a beggar born,And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,And purest faith unhappily forsworn,And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,And strength by limping sway disabledAnd art made tongue-tied by authority,And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,And simple truth miscalled simplicity,And captive good attending captain ill.Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,Save that to die, I leave my love alone.