The poem
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed 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 it self 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.