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 crown’d,
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 stand. 
  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

LXI

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night? 
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight? 
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy? 
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great: 
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake: 
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake: 
  For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
  From me far off, with others all too near.

LXII

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart. 
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount. 
But when my glass shows me myself indeed
Beated and chopp’d with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving were iniquity. 
  ’Tis thee,—­myself,—­that for myself I praise,
  Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

LXIII

Against my love shall be as I am now,
With Time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’erworn;
When hours have drain’d his blood and fill’d his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travell’d on to age’s steepy night;
And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life: 
  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
  And they shall live, and he in them still green.

LXIV