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SONNET 64When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'dThe 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. NOTES LXIV. The melancholy train of thought which commenced with lix. still continues. All things are mutable, and in a constant state of flux and reflux. From the dominion of Time, Change, and Decay none can hope to escape; a thought which touches the poet with sadness, when he thinks of his friend. 2. The sumptuous buildings or other appurtenances of a generation or a people which has decayed and passed away, and which is now buried in the dust. 4. Mortal rage. Deadly, destroying. "Mortal rage" refers to the supreme principle of Mutability and Decay. 5-8. The words of K. Hen. IV., Part II., Act iii. sc. i, lines 45-51, have been justly compared: "O God, that one might read the book of fate,The following lines from Tennyson's In Memoriam, written, probably, to some extent, under Shakespearean influence, may also be given: "There rolls the deep where grew the tree,8. Extending its own domain by what the other loses, and losing by what the other gains. 10. State. Magnificence, though in the previous line "state" seems to mean "condition." 13. This thought is as a death. Causing anticipatively the pang of separation. How to cite this article:______ Even More...  Stratford School Days: What Did Shakespeare Read? Games in Shakespeare's England [A-L] Games in Shakespeare's England [M-Z] An Elizabethan Christmas Clothing in Elizabethan England Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron King James I of England: Shakespeare's Patron The Earl of Southampton: Shakespeare's Patron Going to a Play in Elizabethan London Ben Jonson and the Decline of the Drama Publishing in Elizabethan England Shakespeare's Audience Religion in Shakespeare's England Alchemy and Astrology in Shakespeare's Day Entertainment in Elizabethan England London's First Public Playhouse Shakespeare Hits the Big Time
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