Sonnet 64, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

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.

Sonnet 64, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

For a moment, maybe more than a moment, we wonder whether this gentleman's lover has already passed away and thus whether the final couplet is actually a memory.