In sonnet 123, the speaker addresses “Time,” as he has done in many of the sonnets in this sequence. He spars occasionally with Time, showing how it has no control over the soul, although it disfigures the physical body and for some ravages the mind.
First Quatrain: “No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change”
Addressing his nemesis, Time, the speaker asserts, “No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.” Because of “Time,” such marvels as the “pyramids” were “build up with newer might,” but these wonders are mere “dressing of a former sight” to the speaker, who considers them not at all out of the ordinary or new.
The speaker understands that the nature of humankind includes the act of creation, which has no limits. From the creation of little songs, or sonnets, to the enormous ingenuity that brought forth the pyramids, there exists a constant stream of creativity.
The artist’s work does not change with “Time” as other human activity does. The artist’s creations result from the artist’s self, because they are manifestations of the creative soul. While the physical body and even the mind may come under Time’s sway, the soul does not. And this truth becomes and remains evidence in the artist’s creations that withstand the test of “Time.”
Second Quatrain: “Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire”
The speaker admits that “[o]ur dates are brief,” and because human beings live rather short lives, they are fascinated by the accomplishments of the past. The ordinary human mind accepts received knowledge but fails to intuit that the recycling of material reality has allowed earlier generations to have already become aware of that knowledge.
The speaker demonstrates that humans prefer to accept the linear motion of historical acts as the only progression they can understand, but that same desire does not mask the intensity of the mental anguish such thinking must necessarily engender.
Third Quatrain: “Thy registers and thee I both defy”
The speaker, however, rebels against both Time’s “registers” and against Time itself. He can accomplishment this defiance by conflating both present and past in his art. He makes the bold claim that what Time has recorded is as false as what “we see.” And those “registers” and the bias with which the mind looks at them exist because of the “continual haste” with which Time operates.
The artist, on the other hand, is deliberate, moving slowly in order to accomplish his work of truth, love, and beauty. Time’s playthings matter little to the artist whose work is motivated by his soul awareness, not by the desire to attract vulgar curiosity.
The Couplet: “This I do vow, and this shall ever be”
The speaker then makes his vow to his soul, his talent, and his Muse that he “will be true,” and he will adhere to this truth regardless of Time’s damaging exploits.
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