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Sonnet 12 |
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When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
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| –William Shakespeare |
Sonnet 12 is another of Shakespeare's procreation sonnets. The poet goes through a series of images of mortality, such as a clock, a withering flower, a barren tree and autumn, etc. Then, at the "turn" at the beginning of the third quatrain, the poet admits that the young man to whom the poem is addressed must go among the "wastes of time" just as all of the other images mentioned. The only way he can fight against Time, Shakespeare proposes, is by breeding and making a copy of himself.
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