Shakespeare : Sonnet 126 : O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who In Thy Pow’r

William Shakespeare

O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who In Thy Pow’r

William Shakespeare

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy pow’r

Dost hold time’s fickle glass his sickle hour,

Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st

Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st—

In nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill

May time disgrace, and wretched minute kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure;

She may detain but not still keep her treasure.

   Her audit, though delayed, answered must be,

   And her quietus is to render thee.

Summary of "O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who In Thy Pow’r"

It is the final member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet shows how Time and Nature coincide. The poet says "Oh you, my lovely boy, who have power over time's changing mirror power over its ability to harvest all life - who have grown younger as you ve aged, exposing during that process, how your lover has withered as you've become more beautiful". If nature, the ultimate authority over ruin, insists on rescuing the youth from decay, she's doing it for this reason: to demonstrate that she is able to disgrace time and kill its wretched measurements. The youth should fear her, though he is nature's best-loved pet. She can preserve the youth for a time, but she can't keep the youth, her treasure, always. She can slow her treasure's decay down but she can't prevent it forever. Even though it may be delayed she has to be accountable eventually. The way she'll pay her debt to time is with the youth.

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