To Time <br /> <br />Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou pass, <br />From age to age what thou hast sought to see, <br />One in whom all the excellencies be, <br />In whom Heav'n looks itself as in a glass. <br />Time, look thyself in this tralucent glass, <br />And thy youth past in this pure mirror see, <br />As the world's beauty in his infancy, <br />What is was then, and thou before it was. <br />Pass on, and to posterity tell this, <br />Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been; <br />Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen <br />In perfect human shape all heav'nly bliss, <br />And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee, <br />That she is gone, her like again to see.<br /><br />Michael Drayton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-xvii-stay-speedy-time/
