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XLIX



Against that time, if ever that time come,

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Call\'d to that audit by advis\'d respects;

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,

And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,

When love, converted from the thing it was,

Shall reasons find of settled gravity;

Against that time do I ensconce me here,

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,

And this my hand, against my self uprear,

To guard the lawful reasons on thy part: 

  To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,

  Since why to love I can allege no cause.

 	--William Shakespeare

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.

 	--William Shakespeare

Henry David Thoreau Quotes