Time is something we all struggle with at one point in our lives, if not constantly. The first image that came to mind from this sonnet was of a person standing along a shoreline, contemplating his life and how it was destined to come to an end. To me, the ocean is a place where nature speaks to you through its appearance and sound. By bringing the imagery of waves lapping against the pebbles in the beginning, a tone of bitter sweetness and solitude is set. The ocean is visually a never-ending thing, but the waves are short-lived and frail. An endless cycle of time is always present, but within it people come and go in forms of life and death. As waves continue to come ashore ceaselessly, it seems to be counting down the remaining minutes of ones life building up the tension.
A gradual change in tone can be felt when "time
•is given an evil face. The plaintive mood is slowly molded into a dark shadow of turmoil and beastly characteristics. "Time
•crawls and feeds on its prey, hand in hand with death itself. It even has a scythe, making it seem like a killer from a horror movie. Time passing is portrayed as a cruel and devastating thing that plunders living things of its youth. It is something that drives nature and beauty into ruins - a beast that is extremely relentless.
The "crooked eclipse
•symbolizes the fall of darkness, a shadow covering up the sun. This in a sense may be pointing to the short cycle of each day, how the sun is swallowed up and turned into another day so quickly. The words "glory
•and "gift
•may be pointing to youth or elapsed time, and the sun representing someone that is fighting against the destruction done by "Time
•.
The structure of this sonnet is a traditional Shakespearean sonnet, which is defined by three quatrains followed by a couplet. Each part seems to illustrate a different "time
•
•time as a large never-ending cycle, time as a short cycle of each day, and time as a beast that takes away youth and beauty.
