Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #1041, Shakespeare's Sonnets
Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1041
Public domain basis: Complete text of the 154 sonnets. Public domain.
Coverage: Complete individual poem extracted from parent edition shakespeares-sonnets at bytes 7174-7814; checksum 2ebb938a4bf69a02b716e28682ab8f5d095a3ee4fe7e0419c288924d6a8d8d17.


# Sonnet 12

XII

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
    And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
    Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.