Sonnet 19
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
time
immortality
poetry
beauty
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
What It Means
Shakespeare addresses Time directly and tells it to do its worst — ruin the lions, overturn forests, flatten mountains, drag the whole world into darkness. It can do all that. The one thing it may not do is touch his friend's face or carve lines into his brow. Time will ignore this instruction. But the poem won't. The final couplet reasserts the claim from Sonnet 18: his verse will keep the young man young forever, despite time's power.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. Sonnet 19 follows directly from the poetic immortality argument of Sonnet 18, addressing Time as a villain.
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