Theme: Time
Content: The relentless and irrepressible Time can only be beaten by the time-defeating stature of the author's verse.
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled
shore,
So do our
minutes hasten
to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before;
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
- Beautiful metaphor of us being likened to pebbles on a shore against the irresistible waves of time that eventually wear us away to dust. Taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book 15, Lines 180-84.
- The reference to minutes (of which there are obviously 60 in an hour) is appropriately in the 60th. sonnet.
- Probable pun on "hour" aswell in our.
- The waves represent the first of the 4 Elements: Water.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity,
wherewith being crowned
Crooked eclipses
'gainst his glory fight,
And time that gave doth now his gift confound.
- Another beautiful metaphor of the subject's light being eclipsed and confounded.
- The subject's fall is tracked by Crawls, crowned, Crooked, confound.
- The light represents the second of the 4 Elements: Fire.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow;
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands
but
for his scythe to mow.
- A third beautiful metaphor of the subject flourishing like grass but being cut down by time's scythe.
- The grass represents the third of the 4 Elements: Earth.
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth despite his cruel
hand.
- Contrary to Q3's statement that nothing stands in the wake of time's scythe, the author states that his verse will be the only thing that will stand the test of time.
- After causing Crawls, crowned, and crookedness, Time is finally declared cruel.
- The author's verse represents the fourth of the 4 Elements: Air (the author has already identified Air as my thought in Sonnet 45)
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net