When I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment. That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment. When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky: Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory. Then the conceit of this inconstant stay, Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay To change your day of youth to sullied night, And all in war with Time for love of you, As he takes from you, I engraft you new. 16 But wherefore do not you a mightier way Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time? And fortify yourself in your decay With means more blessed than my barren rhyme? Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset, With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers, Much liker than your painted counterfeit: So should the lines of life that life repair Which this (Time’s pencil) or my pupil pen Neither in inward worth nor outward fair Can make you live yourself in eyes of men. To give away yourself, keeps yourself still, And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill. 17 Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts: If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say this poet lies, Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces. So should my papers (yellowed with their age) Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage, And stretched metre of an antique song. But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice,—in it, and in my rhyme. 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st, So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 19