Beauty, Time, and Love
Sonnet IV

When men shall find thy flow'r, thy glory, pass,

And thou with careful brow, sitting alone,

Receivéd hast this message from thy glass,

That tells the truth and says that All is gone;

Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou mad'st,

Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining:

I that have loved thee thus before thou fad'st—

My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning.

The world shall find this miracle in me,

That fire can burn when all the matter 's spent:

Then what my faith hath been thyself shalt see,

And that thou wast unkind thou may'st repent.—

Thou may'st repent that thou hast scorn'd my tears,

When Winter snows upon thy sable hairs.