Shakespeare - Sonnet LXV - Analysis & Summary

About Author - 

Shakespeare was born in 1564. A name which is doesn't need an introduction to the world of English Literature. He left Avon for London and there became an actor, and then a playwriter.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets & 38 plays. Sonnets 1-126 are part of the Fair Youth Sequence. These sonnets are said to be devoted to a young beautiful man whose identity is unknown. Sonnet LXV (65) is a sonnet from the same sequence.

The Theme Of The Sonnet- 

Unlike Spenser and Wyatt, Shakespeare doesn't follow the Petrarchan form of a sonnet (8+6 lines), but instead, his sonnets are made up of 3 quatrains of four lines and a couplet in the end. The brief couplet does not allow for sustained argument but lends itself to an epigrammatic, witty, or paradoxical assertion to counterbalance the previous 3 quatrains.

 

Sonnet LXV - Summary & Analysis- 

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

In the first quatrain, Shakespeare expresses his sadness that all the most powerful objects made by nature - brass, stone, the earth, and even the boundless sea, in all their power and might are still overswayed and dominated by the sad mortality, They all have to come to an end. 
Shakespeare asserts that with this terrifying and huge power death holds against the strong earthly things, how can beauty withstand the rage of death, which is even weaker than a soft flower. 

O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?

In the first stanza of the second quatrain, Shakespeare compares the youth with summer's honey breath and wonders that how the youth will hold out against the wrackful siege of battering days i.e., time which destroys everything.  even the rocks which are impregnable fail to stay stout and the strong gates of steel get decayed against time.

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?'

In the third quatrain, Shakespeare wonders where can he hide the youth's beauty to save it from the wrath of time. Beauty is time's best jewel, but time itself destroys it. He asks that what strong hand can hold the swift and rapidly advancing foot of the time back. Who can forbid beauty from getting spoiled?

   O, none, unless this miracle have might,

   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

 As discussed with the Shakesperian format of Sonnet, the three previous quatrains build us questions and hypotheses that get answered in a witty way in the final couplet. In the last two lines, Shakespeare answers his questions himself and says that no one has the power to hold back time and safeguard youth's beauty. Only the speaker can preserve it in black ink; youth's beauty can be preserved in writing.