Sonnet 60

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end,

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,

Crookèd eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

Like all the waves come crashing to the shore,

All of our moments come rushing to their end,

Trading their places with the ones that came before.

The future thrusts forward for the past to rend.

Newborn, the child, once in one ray of light,

Crawls, and then stands, and then reigns over the earth,

And then is eclipsed, day by day, night by night,

As time takes away what time gave forth.

It slowly retracts the beauties of youth,

Makes wrinkles like ditches in cemeteries,

Erases most signs of beauty’s consummate truth,

Till all graces yield, against all pleas.

And yet the wave of my song always flows

In hope loving you beyond where time goes.