Page 1976 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

30 IT

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 cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored and sorrows end.