Sonnet LXIV
When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’dThe 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 gainAdvantage 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 chooseBut weep to have, that which it fears to lose.
Words in this poem
- sometime adv.
- At a past time indefinitely referred to; once; formerly.
- ruminate v. i.
- To chew the cud; to chew again what has been slightly chewed and swallowed. [L. ruminatus, p.p. of ruminari, ruminare, fr. rumen, -inis, throat, akin to ructare to belch, erugere to belch out, Gr. roccettan.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet LXIV is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #1041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXIV, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-64.html, id L00082.
Form and metre
Sonnet LXIV is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGG defac'dA · ageB · raz'dA · rageB · gainC · shoreD · mainC · storeD · stateE · decayF · ruminateE · awayF · chooseG · loseG
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d | 10 | ········˘/ |
| The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz’d, | 10 | ·/·/˘/···· |
| And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| When I have seen the hungry ocean gain | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| And the firm soil win of the watery main, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Increasing store with loss, and loss with store; | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| When I have seen such interchange of state, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Or state itself confounded, to decay; | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate: | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| That Time will come and take my love away. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| This thought is as a death which cannot choose | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| But weep to have, that which it fears to lose. | 10 | ·········· |
On this poem
Notes from the edition 5
Notes by William J. Rolfe, Shakespeare's Sonnets (New York, 1905), Internet Archive scan
- Line 2 Rich proud. Hyphened by Malone, like down-ras'd below. Cost = that on which money is spent. Cf. 2 Hen. IV. i. 3. 60.
- Line 4 Mortal. Deadly, fatal; as in 46. I, etc.
- Line 5 When I have seen the hungry ocean, etc. Some critics have expressed surprise that S. should know anything of these gradual encroachments of the sea on the land ; but they had become familiar on the east coast of England before his day, as at Ravens- purg {Rich. II. ii. 1. 296, etc.). Cf. 2 Hen. IV. iii. 1. 45 : — " O God ! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea! and, other times, to see The beachy girdle of the ocean Too wide for Neptune's hips," etc. See also Tennyson, In Memoriam, cxxiii.
- Line 13 This thought, etc. This thought, which cannot choose but weep ... is as a death.
- Line 14 To have. At having ; the " indefinite " infinitive, which is very common in S.
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