Sonnet 12

   This sonnet focuses on the passage of time and how, ultimately, life leads to death.   Interestingly, the first line of the sonnet almost sounds like the ticking of a clock.  The consonants help create the imagery of a swinging pendulum of a clock. The second line tells of "the brave day" giving into "hideous night."  If comparing the theme of the prior sonnets with this sonnet, the "brave day" could be youth and the "hideous night" old age.  The word "brave" can associate youth to be a positive and the word "hideous" can associate old age to be a negative.  The "violet past prime" and "sable curls all silvered o'er with white" also describe old age.  The second quatrain of the sonnet uses seasons to suggest the beauty before old age dies when there is no offspring.  The seventh line of the sonnet is about summer and the following line about winter.  This echoes the earlier line about day giving into night (line 2).  The last quatrain is about how beauty fades quickly.  There is an underlying theme of it being necessary that there is other beauty to watch other beauty fade and to keep it alive.  The couplet of the sonnet personifies time and death.  The meaning of the last couplet is that nothing can stop the passage of time and, ultimately, death is the end.