It is likely that the misplacement of sonnets 108 and 126 has resulted in the erroneous interpretation of sonnets 18-126 as being addressed to a “young man.” Sonnet 18 addresses a “sweet boy,” and sonnet 126 addresses “my lovely boy.” The main argument in sonnets 1-17 is that such a physically attractive creature should marry and produce heirs, who would then also be attractive, and supply the poet/speaker with unlimited material for his sonnets.
First Quatrain: “What’s in the brain, that ink may character”
In the first quatrain, the speaker addresses the young man, whom he has been exhorting to marry and produce beautiful heirs. The speaker’s intention is to emphasize his “true spirit.” He wants to stress his sincerity to the lad, and so he essentially says that he has, in fact, said it all, and wonders what more he can say or do to persuade.
He makes clear that because he loves the young man, he has the latter’s best interests at heart. His sonnets have “express[ed] [the speaker’s] love,” and they have, as well, expressed the “dear merit” of the youth. The speaker wants to assure the younger man that he believes all of the glowing attributes he has defined in the poems to be genuine.
Second Quatrain: “Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine”
The speaker then answers his own question: there is nothing new he could add, but his pleading for the young man to marry and produce heirs (heirs that would also be those of the speaker) is like praying. He must pray every day and plead every day “o’er the very same.”
The speaker claims that even if often repeated he will not consider his argument old and stale, and he requests that the young lad do the same. The speaker will not deem the young man’s arguments old, meaning tiresome, and the young man will give the older man the same consideration.
The speaker then invokes the time when he “first [ ] hallow’d [the young man’s] fair name.” And that first time would be in sonnet 1, where the speaker says, “Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,” and declared, “From fairest creatures we desire increase.”
Third Quatrain: “So that eternal love in love’s fresh case”
The speaker then produces once more a reason that the young man should marry, “So that eternal love in love’s fresh case / Weighs not the dust and injury of age.” Also, by producing heirs who will continue the beauty and love of the two generations, the young father abolishes the curse of father time’s imposition of “necessary wrinkles.”
Even though the speaker, the young potential father, and the heir will age, the poet/speaker will be able to frame them in the sonnets that will “make[ ] antiquity for aye his page.”
The Couplet: “Finding the first conceit of love there bred”
The “eternal love” that continues like a thread through the generations will be “[f]inding the first conceit of love there bred / Where time and outward form would show it dead.” If the speaker succeeds in persuading the young man to marry and produce heirs, the beauty and love will continue, as the poet/speaker will be able to capture their souls in sonnets, even though their physical bodies will age and perish.
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