Sonnet 64

William Shakespeare · 1609

Catalog grade guidance: 9–12 — English sonnet; dense metaphor—best with notes for younger high-school readers.

15 content lines · 117 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 5 sec (approx.)

Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #1041, Shakespeare's Sonnets.Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.

LXIV

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.