# Sonnet CXXVI explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by William Shakespeare.

## What happens

The poet addresses the young man, acknowledging his power over time yet warning that Nature, though she may delay, must ultimately render him back to time's reckoning.

## Themes in this chapter

### Time and Mortality

The poem directly engages with Time's power and the inevitability of its reckoning.

### Beauty and Transience

The young man's beauty is held in tension with Nature's eventual surrender to time.

## Character check-ins

### Youth

Addressed as 'my lovely boy' who holds Time's glass and sickle.

### Time

Personified as having a fickle glass and sickle; subject to disgrace by Nature's skill.

### Nature

Sovereign mistress over wrack who may detain but not keep her treasure.

## Key lines

> O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle, hour

You, my beautiful young man, who control Time's unreliable hourglass and his scythe.

_The youth is depicted as having mastery over time itself._

> Her audit, though delay’d, answer’d must be, And her quietus is to render thee.

Nature's account, though postponed, must eventually be settled, and her final payment is to give you up.

_The inevitability of death and time's claim is emphasized._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/cxxvi
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters