Sonnet 60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
time
mortality
poetry
immortality
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
What It Means
Time moves like waves toward a shore — relentless, replacing each other. We are born, we flourish, we age and decline, and time fights against us every step. But verse will last. The final couplet returns to the immortality claim: 'in hope my verse shall stand, / Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.' It's one of the sequence's most economical statements of its central preoccupation.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. The wave image is one of Shakespeare's most memorable metaphors for the passage of time.
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