Sonnet 63

1 Against my love shall be as I am now
2 With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn,
3 When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
4 With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
5 Hath travelled on to age’s steepy night,
6 And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
7 Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
8 Stealing away the treasure of his spring:
9 For such a time do I now fortify
10 Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
11 That he shall never cut from memory
12 My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
13 His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
14 And they shall live, and he in them still green.