Return to Shakespeare's Sonnet 12 |
2.
brave: splendid, beautiful.
4.
sable: black, dark.
6.
erst: formerly.
7.
girded up: bound up. The picture below, by Vincent Van Gogh, shows wheat "girded up in sheaves."
8.
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard: In this line the poet personifies sheaves carried on a harvest cart as a body carried on a bier.
9.
of thy beauty do I question make,: i.e., I think over what is to become of your beauty.
10.
wastes of time: things wasted or destroyed by time.
13.
Time's scythe: Father Time is usually depicted with the scythe he uses to mow down people and everything else.
14.
breed: offspring. brave: defy