First Quatrain: “Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear”
The speaker admonishes his poet’s persona that two instruments will tell him things about his progress: his mirror will remind him that he is aging, and his clock will remind him when he wastes time.
The empty pages of his book will also remind him that he must continue to create and be productive in order to fill those blank pages with “learning.” He must continue to produce his sonnets so that he will be able to enjoy his creations into old age.
Second Quatrain: “The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show”
Again, the speaker refers to the mirror and the clock: the mirror will “truly show” “the wrinkles” that will develop as the speaker ages, while the clock will keep ticking off the minutes as his life speeds by.
But the mirror can be used as a motivational tool if the speaker/poet will keep in mind the image of “mouthed graves.” The open grave waits for the speaker who has ceased his work and can no longer create his valuable poems. Such an image is offered to spur the writer to greater effort that he stops wasting his precious moments.
Third Quatrain: “Look! what thy memory cannot contain”
The speaker then shouts a command, “Look!” He commands his poetself to understand that he will not be able to remember all of the important and fascinating details of this life unless he fashions them into useful artifacts, that is, the sonnets, and “[c]ommits [them] to these waste blanks.”
The speaker insists that he must create his works that are like his children “deliver’d from [his] brain.” As he saves his “children” and fashions them into poems he will “take a new acquaintance,” and he will be reminded of his experiences in his old age.
The Couplet: “These offices, so oft as thou wilt look”
In the couplet, “These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, / Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book,” the speaker concludes his premise that if the speaker makes haste and stays productive, he will be glad and “profit” much from “[his] book.” The speaker predicts that his enrichment will come from two sources, both spiritual, which is the most important, and the material. He will also be able to gain monetarily from the sale of his book.
The speaker will “enrich” his memory, his heart and soul, as well as his pocketbook. The motivation must satisfy the speaker on all levels, if it is to work. The speaker has noted many times in many sonnets that his is interested in capturing only beauty and truth.
Other Shakespeare articles: Who is Shakespeare?
Sonnet Commentaries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 96, 116, 126, 130, 138, 146
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