Sonnet 60

“Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name” by Edmund Spenser (1595)

Taken from Spenser’s sonnet sequence Amoretti, this sonnet predates Shakespeare’s thematic concerns about the immortalizing power of art. In Spenser’s Sonnet 75, the speaker asserts that their verse will “eternize” (Line 11) the virtues of the beloved. The water imagery used to depict time’s relentlessness is also similar to the wave imagery of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 60. Spenser’s innovation with the English sonnet is apparent here, as the poem follows an ABAB BCBC CDCD EE rhyme scheme, the repeated sounds linking with the preceding quatrain.

“Sonnet 19” by William Shakespeare (1609)

Beginning with the phrase “Devouring Time” (Line 1), this sonnet is thematically linked with Sonnet 60. Here, the speaker/lover addresses time (once again personified) and requests it to consume everything but the beloved’s “fair brow” (Line 9). In the end, the speaker decides it is only their verse that can best preserve the beloved’s beauty. Sonnets 12, 18, 55, 59, and 123 also explore the themes of poetry and immortality and the cruel power of time.

“Sonnet: On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic” by Charlotte Smith (1797)