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Sonnet 19
Project Gutenberg eBook #1041, Shakespeare's Sonnets
Source
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 11580-12224; checksum 7e124db57032ecf682514c21f982f021ee3d4174c7207691d6aced98299c0f3a.
# Sonnet 19
Sonnet 19
XIX
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws, And burn the long-liv’d phoenix, in her blood; Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets; But I forbid thee one most heinous crime: O! carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; Him in thy course untainted do allow For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men. Yet do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young.