The Full Text of “Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")”
1Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
2But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
3How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea
4Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
5O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
6Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,
7When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
8Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
9O fearful meditation! where, alack,
10Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
11Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
12Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
13 O none, unless this miracle have might,
14 That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
The Full Text of “Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")”
1Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
2But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
3How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea
4Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
5O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
6Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,
7When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
8Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
9O fearful meditation! where, alack,
10Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
11Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
12Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
13 O none, unless this miracle have might,
14 That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
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“Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")” Introduction
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"Sonnet 65" was written by the English Renaissance poet and playwright William Shakespeare and first published in 1609. The poem's speaker mourns the fact that everything is subject to the passage of time and wonders how something as delicate as beauty can possibly survive when even the strongest things on earth eventually crumble and decay. Yet there is one thing, the speaker ultimately argues, that can withstand time's relentless siege: poetry itself—and, importantly, the love expressed within it. "Sonnet 65" belongs to Shakespeare's “Fair Youth” sonnets, a sequence of poems addressed to a handsome young man.
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“Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")” Summary
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Given that sad death is more powerful than even brass, stone, the earth, and the limitless ocean, how could beauty possibly stand a chance against time's rage, when beauty is as fragile as a flower? How can the sweet air of summer withstand the onslaught of the days leading to winter, which keep coming like a destructive army? How can beauty possibly survive, when time breaks down even solid rocks and strong steel gates? Oh, it’s scary to think about this! Sigh, where will the thing that time prizes most of all hide? What has the strength to hold back time’s quick forward march? Who can stop time from ruining beauty? Oh, no one and nothing can overcome time, unless the miracle of poetry is real—meaning that my love can survive in this poem itself, and continue to shine brightly in the black ink of these words.
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“Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")” Themes
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The Immortalizing Power of Poetry
The speaker of "Sonnet 65" laments the fact that time changes all things. As time continues its merciless march forward, everything in the world dies, decays, or is lost. In the face of time’s power, the speaker wonders how phenomena as delicate as beauty and love possibly might endure. The only thing that can hold back time, the speaker concludes, is poetry itself: even though the speaker will die one day, the words of the speaker's poetry, and the love those words express, will live on in "black ink."
The speaker acknowledges that even the strongest substances in the world are subject to the passage of time. Everything from “brass,” to “stone,” to “earth,” to the “sea” is eventually overcome by "sad mortality." In other words, everything breaks down sooner or later. Brass can get tarnished, stone becomes gravel or sand, dirt gets eroded, and the “boundless sea,” which appears limitless, has an end. Neither impenetrable rocks nor strong steel gates seem all that tough in the fight against time, which breaks through their defenses and "decays" them like everything else.
If time can destroy even “steel” and “stone,” the speaker reasons, then it follows that intangible things like love and beauty don’t have a chance of sticking around for long. Such things, in this speaker’s mind, are as delicate and fleeting as “summer’s honey breath” or a spring “flower”—and thus even more vulnerable to time’s cruel hand.
Yet the speaker also suggests that something can survive the passage of time: “this miracle”—the poem itself. If a poem has “might,” or lasting power, then it can travel into the future to be read by generations of readers. And if that’s true, perhaps love can also survive, since poetry can express and contain love. In other words, poetry is essentially immortal, and the love and beauty that such poetry contains will still “shine bright” in the “black ink” of the poem for years to come.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")”
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Lines 1-2
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,The speaker begins by listing out strong, seemingly everlasting substances: “brass,” “stone,” the "sea," and the "earth" itself. The speaker then laments the fact that even these materials are, in the end, temporary: “sad mortality,” the speaker says, will overcome—“o’ersway[]”—their “power.”
By calling mortality “sad,” the speaker communicates a sense of loss: time alters everything, these opening lines suggest, and even the most basic of materials—metal, rock, water, dirt—are subject to change and decay. Think about it: over time brass becomes tarnished, stone breaks down into sand, sea levels rise and fall, and earth is eroded by water and wind. All of these substances, in the speaker's estimation, are thus “mortal”—they are temporary.
The speaker uses polysyndeton (that repeated "nor") to add intensity and emphasis to this idea that nothing can escape "sad mortality"—not this nor that, nor that, nor that. The hissing sibilance here also makes the lines feel hushed and solemn, all those /s/ sounds bringing the speaker's voice down to a (perhaps sinister) whisper:
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,By connecting the words to one another through sound, this sibilance also subtly reinforces the fact that all of these things are subject to change.
This is a sonnet and, like most English-language sonnets, it uses the meter iambic pentameter—lines of five iambs, or feet with an unstressed-stressed beat pattern. Line 1 features perfect iambic pentameter, evoking the relentless march of time, but notice how things get funky in line 2:
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,While "power" technically has two syllables, it's likely that Shakespearean readers would have scanned it as having just one: "pow'r." A more obvious substitution pops up in the middle of the line, where there are two stressed beats in a row thanks to the word "o'ersways." Such disruption of the steady meter evokes time's destabilizing power.
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Lines 3-4
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? -
Lines 5-6
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days, -
Lines 7-8
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? -
Lines 9-12
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? -
Lines 13-14
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
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“Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")” Symbols
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Darkness and Light
The speaker envisions this poem itself, and the love that it expresses, “shin[ing] bright,” into the future. This idea of the poem as a source of light builds on some common symbolism: while darkness usually symbolizes death and despair, light symbolizes life and hope. The fact that this poem can “shine bright,” then, suggests that poetry, and the immortality it brings, is a source of hope and consolation in the face of death and loss.
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“Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Personification
The poem uses personification to emphasize the destructive power of time. The speaker refers to time's “swift foot,” for example, to illustrating time’s inevitable forward movement. Time, the speaker adds, claims every “jewel” or precious thing for his “chest,” or his own jewelry box. Time also “spoil[s]”—destroys—beauty.
Time here is thus a figure with a will and agency of his own, and personification makes it easier for the reader to see this capital-T "Time" as a distinct enemy. The reader might envision a violent, selfish person who destroys everything in their path. In this sense, time seems almost like a tyrant, who rules over everything and everyone.
The poem also personifies beauty, which can't "hold a plea" against time's "rage." Beauty is like a "flower," a delicate creature that can't hope to reason with time. Summer, too, gets personified, as the speaker deems its warm air “honey breath.” This sweet, golden "breath" is meant to evoke beauty and pleasure. This personification helps to emphasize how delicate and fragile beauty is compared to time. Where beauty, personified, has gentle, “honey breath,” time marches forward ruthlessly, each day "batt'ring" against the next.
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Polysyndeton
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Anaphora
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Metaphor
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Aporia
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Juxtaposition
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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Assonance
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"Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- O'ersways
- Rage
- Wrackful
- Siege
- Batt'ring
- Impregnable
- Stout
- Meditation
- Alack
- Chest
- Swift
- Spoil
- Forbid
- Might
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An abbreviation of the word "oversway," which means to overcome or overpower.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")”
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Form
"Sonnet 65 is," as the name indicates, a sonnet. More specifically, it's a Shakespearean sonnet. This means that the poem has 14 lines broken up into three rhyming quatrains (four-line stanzas) and a closing couplet.
Traditionally, sonnets deal with some kind of problem or internal argument. In a typical Shakespearean sonnet, the speaker presents the problem or question of the poem in the quatrains, and then uses the closing couplet (the last two lines) to respond in some way to everything that came before. This moment is called the poem's volta, or turn.
That's essentially what happens here: the speaker spends the quatrains wondering if anything can stand up to time's power, and then declares in the couplet that nothing can—save poetry.
What's interesting about "Sonnet 65" is that it also has a slight turn in line 9, right as the third quatrain starts. This is actually where the volta appears in a different kind of sonnet, the Petrarchan, and it neatly divides the poem into an opening octave (eight-line stanza) followed by a sestet (six-line stanza):
- In the opening eight lines of "Sonnet 65," the speaker questions how beauty could possibly withstand time's power given that much stronger substances fall prey to decay.
- And at the beginning of the sestet, just as in a Petrarchan sonnet, there's a shift: the speaker’s questions become increasingly shorter and more urgent, taking up just one line apiece as the speaker introduces a human presence into the poem: who, the speaker wonders, could ever hold back time and death?
Importantly, however, the poem doesn’t truly answer this question until the closing couplet. Time thus seems all-powerful for most of the poem. It’s only at the last minute that the speaker suggests something could survive: the poem itself.
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Meter
"Sonnet 65" is written in iambic pentameter, the type of meter used in traditional sonnets. In this meter, each line of the poem has five metrical feet; each of those feet is an iamb, meaning it begins with an unstressed syllable and ends on a stressed syllable. For example, the first two lines of the poem read:
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,The two stressed beats of "o'ersways" break with the meter and draw attention to the destabilizing power of time, but overall the metrical variations here are minor. (Also note that, in Shakespeare’s time, the words “power” and “flower” would likely have been pronounced as “pow’r” and “flow’r,” meaning each word counts as only one stressed syllable.)
Throughout the sonnet, then, the meter creates a regular, back and forth movement, almost like the tick-tock sound of a clock. This steady meter conveys part of the poem’s meaning, as it illustrates the regular, inevitable movement of time. The meter, then, seems to reinforce the idea that time is all-powerful and that nothing can escape it.
Yet the poem shifts out of this meter at the very end, right when the speaker implies that something can outlast time: poetry, and with it, the love that the poetry contains. The last line of the poem reads:
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
Both “black ink” and “shine bright” can be read as spondees, metrical feet made out of two stressed syllables. This shift and these clusters of stresses emphasize the "black ink" of the poem, and its ability to "shine" into the future. Just as the speaker suggests that poetry can escape the deteriorating effects of time, then, the poem escapes its own meter, conveying the power and “shining” quality of the poem itself.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem follows a regular ABAB rhyme scheme throughout its first 12 lines and ends with a rhyming couplet. As a whole, then, the rhyme scheme follows this pattern, which is standard for Shakespearean sonnets:
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
The rhyme scheme throughout the poem’s three quatrains—when the speaker questions whether anything can outlast time—reinforces the sense that time’s forward momentum is inevitable. Just as each quatrain rhymes in a predictable way, the poem suggests that time predictably moves forward.
The regularity of the rhyme scheme throughout the first 12 lines also calls attention to the closing couplet, which follows a GG pattern. The shift in rhyme scheme here reflects the poem's sudden shift in attitude: the speaker suggests that something can outlast time—poetry, and the love that it conveys.
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“Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")” Speaker
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While the speaker of "Sonnet 65 "remains anonymous throughout the poem, many readers take the speaker to be a representation of the poet, William Shakespeare. For one thing, it's implied that the speaker is a poet—that the speaker has written "love" into "black ink." The ending of the poem, then, strongly suggests that the speaker is a representation of Shakespeare himself.
Of course, this is not the only way to interpret the speaker. In a certain sense, the speaker could be any writer or artist who hopes that their art might last into the future and, in doing so, preserve some facet of their life. Even more broadly, the poem can be read as expressing a universal human wish to attain immortality or to avoid the losses that time inevitably entails.
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“Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")” Setting
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"Sonnet 65" doesn't have a specific setting. The speaker mourns how everything in the world—“brass,” “stone,” the “sea,” etc.—is subject to change and decay. The speaker highlights natural things like flowers and summer air while also calling attention to human-made objects like “gates of steel.” All of these things, the speaker argues, change, decay, or disappear over time. Keeping the setting so broad allows the poem's message to be universal; it's not tied to anyone one time or place, but rather is speaking to a fact of existence itself (i.e., that everything is subject to the passage of time).
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Literary and Historical Context of “Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")”
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Literary Context
"Sonnet 65" was first published in 1609 as part of a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets. "Sonnet 65" belongs more specifically to a sequence known as the “Fair Youth” sonnets, a series of poems addressed to an unidentified young man for whom the speaker of the poems expresses love and attraction.
The “Fair Youth” has never been definitively identified, but scholars have proposed Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton, as well as William Herbert, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, as possibilities. Both Wriothesley and Herbert were patrons of Shakespeare, and Shakespeare dedicated the sonnets as a whole to a “Mr. W. H.”
Although the speaker doesn't specifically describe the “Fair Youth” in this poem, the speaker’s reference to “love” in the final line implicitly references him. "Sonnet 65" is also one of several Shakespeare poems in which the speaker questions how love can outlast time and then proposes that poetry itself can grant its subjects a kind of immortality. (The topic was in fact quite common among Renaissance poets, who were likely concerned with their own legacies. )
Interestingly, the sonnets were published without Shakespeare’s authorization: a local publisher, Thomas Thorpe, effectively pirated the sonnets from their author. This has led some readers to speculate that they were intended as private missives, not public poems—they were meant, in other words, for the “Fair Youth” himself.
As a sonnet, the poem draws on a poetic form that dates back to 13th-century Italy and the poet Petrarch. Shakespeare helped to reinvent the form in the English language, switching up its rhyme scheme and moving the poem's volta, or turn, to its closing couplet.
Historical Context
"Sonnet 65" meditates on the power of time to erode, change, and deteriorate all things. Importantly, too, although the poem doesn’t name death directly, such words as “decay” and “mortality” clearly evoke the speaker’s sense of death as tangible and omnipresent.
When reading the poem, it can be helpful to remember that in Shakespeare’s lifetime, death was, in a sense, omnipresent. Shakespeare lived through multiple iterations of the plague, and, in the absence of modern medicine, death was generally much more a part of everyday life in Renaissance England than it is today. In fact, an early Quarto version of the poem includes an illustration: a print of death as a kind of reaper, cutting down everything and everyone in its path.
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More “Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")” Resources
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External Resources
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Biography of William Shakespeare — Read more about Shakespeare’s life and work.
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The 1609 Quarto Version — View the original 1609 Quarto version of the poem, which includes a creepy illustration of death/time.
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Folger Shakespeare Library — Find a range of resources on Shakespeare’s life and work at the website of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
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The Poem Out Loud — Watch actress Annette Badland recite the poem.
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The Fair Youth Sonnets — Learn more about Shakespeare’s Fair Youth sonnets, including different possible identities proposed for the Fair Youth.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Shakespeare
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