SONNET 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
Paraphrase and Analysis of Sonnet 65
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Shakespearean Sonnet
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Six Theories About Shakespeare's Sonnets
How to Analyze a Shakespearean Sonnet
The Rules of Shakespearean Sonnets
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Q & A
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Petrarch's Influence on Shakespeare
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The Order of the Sonnets
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Who was The Rival Poet?
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Did You Know? ... For over 400 years The Reign of King Edward III has been classified as an anonymous play by everyone but a handful of renegade critics.
First printed in 1596 by the London bookseller and publisher, Cuthbert Burby, the play's title page told Elizabethan readers that "it hath bin sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London", but Burby credited no author. The play likely was very successful at the time, for Burby published another edition in 1599, again without naming an author.
Read on...
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