Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare

Sonnet XII 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.

Interpretations

 * Martin Jarvis, for the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks (EMI)