Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Notes
Where Czesław Miłosz chased the vanishing trace of a solitary hare across a frozen Lithuanian dawn, William Shakespeare sits within the mechanical chime of the clock, watching the daylight sink into hideous night, the violet past prime, and the silvered sable curls bound onto the bier of summer. The speaking subject dismantles the illusion of personal exemption from temporal decay, demonstrating how the acoustic strike of the hour measures not merely the passing of minutes, but the unyielding arithmetic of nature where every blooming form is carried away by the indifferent scythe of time. It anchors September’s theme of Echo in the sovereign cadence of mortal impermanence, reminding us that repetition is the clock’s unwavering summons a reminder that beauty cannot outrun its own harvest unless it dares to defy the void by answering life with continuity. #September #WilliamShakespeare #Echo #Time #Poetry