Sonnet 124

1 If my dear love were but the child of state,
2 It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered,
3 As subject to time’s love or to time’s hate,
4 Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
5 No it was builded far from accident,
6 It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
7 Under the blow of thralled discontent,
8 Whereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls:
9 It fears not policy that heretic,
10 Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
11 But all alone stands hugely politic,
12 That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
13 To this I witness call the fools of time,
14 Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.