Sonnet 55 Time Quotes

These images of tomb monuments share the purpose of this sonnet: they are works of art that try to sneak past death by lasting a long time. The people they memorialize may be long dead, but marble isn't going anywhere anytime soon. But the speaker one-ups this by creating something that will last even longer: what he calls a "powerful rhyme." It's ripped and it's ready.

If you were Time, you might want to sue for libel after seeing yourself described in line 4. In order to attack it more efficiently, the speaker personifies time: in other words, he gives it human characteristics. Instead of being an abstract enemy, time is now more like a messy chambermaid who forgot to do enough sweeping this week. Don't get us wrong—it's still disturbing to read about stone "besmear'd" with all the grossness of passing years—but it's also humanizing. Time is disgusting and dirty. We can deal with that. And the speaker keeps it clean by steering clear of material art and making his poetry abstract and pure.

These lines are mostly about violent war, but these "broils" are not described as specific conflicts. Instead, they're vague, universal disasters that seem to concern the whole world's future. Statues and buildings may look like they're built to last, but after a certain amount of time, human violence will catch up with them.

The only way to escape the violence of the future is to just keep living. And Sonnet 55 is doing just that, sitting tight in the memories of every reader as the rest of civilization goes down in flames.

But time doesn't only bring destruction. Okay, so it's no Easter Bunny, but after enough centuries time will eventually bring the end of the world and the final judgment. That sounds bad, but only if you are also bad. If you've lived a good life and never cheated on your SATs, you'll be resurrected into an eternal life of harps and happiness.

The speaker makes it clear that his beloved is definitely on the train to heaven. But until the time that God brings him physically back to life, Sonnet 55 has to keep the poetic oxygen pumping, making sure his memory doesn't fade even if his body has kicked the bucket.