When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan
Which I new pay as if not paid before
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend
All losses are restor’d and sorrows end
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time
When wasteful war shall statues overturn
And broils root out the work of masonry
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory
‘Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom
So, till the judgment that yourself arise
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts–from far where I abide–
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find
Lyrics provided by LRCLIB
