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When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

Cosmic Variance
By Sean Carroll
Apr 17, 2008 8:54 PMNov 5, 2019 8:13 AM

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April is Poetry Month, just like it was last year. We're celebrating with Shakespeare's Sonnet 64, about the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed 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.

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