Sonnet 5 by Shakespeare



Sonnet 5 is a sonnet written by William Shakespeare.

Analysis
It repeats the emphasis on human aging, compared with progress of the seasons. The final couplet about "distilled flowers" refers to the extraction of perfume from petals, in which the visible "show" of the flowers disappears, but their "essence" remains. The reference is probably to the Youth's "seed" - his capacity to prolong his "essence" by producing children, but it is also an example of Shakespeare's play on the question of what is transient and what eternal in the material world.