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.