---
title: RuinHathTaughtMeThusToRuminate
created: 2007-02-06 12:38
updated: 2007-02-06 12:38
revision: 2
author: Auriea
summary: "[[Quoth]] When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age, When sometime lofty towers I see down razed, . . ."
---

[[Quoth]]

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down razed,
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 wat'ry 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.

*--Wm. Shakespeare [http://www.handprint.com/SC/SHK/sonnet4.html]*