Sonnet 63

Devouring Time

  1. 1 Against my love shall be as I am now,
  2. 2 With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;
  3. 3 When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow
  4. 4 With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
  5. 5 Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;
  6. 6 And all those beauties whereof now he's king
  7. 7 Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
  8. 8 Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
  9. 9 For such a time do I now fortify
  10. 10 Against confounding age's cruel knife,
  11. 11 That he shall never cut from memory
  12. 12 My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:
  13. 13 His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
  14. 14 And they shall live, and he in them still green.