When forty winters shall besiege thy brow / Shakespeare

Shakespeare's 2nd sonnet is another procreation sonnet and inquiry into Time's destruction of Beauty, urging the young man of the sonnet to have a child.

Synopsis and analysis
The theme of necessary procreation found in Sonnet 1 continues into Sonnet 2. The man's beauty will be lost and become like a "tattered weed." "Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held" unless he reproduces. People will ask where his beauty is "Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies."

The only way for this beauty to be preserved is to have a child. Therefore when the man described is old, his heir will be young — "This were to be new made when thou art old."

Interpretations

 * Caroline Blakiston, for the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks (EMI Classics)