Sonnet 12

In quite a unique display of what makes Shakespeare so highly revered as a poet, Shakespeare uses specific word choice and the iambic pentameter format to imitate the rhythmic ticking of a clock in this sonnet's opening line. Again, the central purpose of this sonnet is to urge the young man, W.H., to create a child. Shakespeare effectively executes his persuasion by utilizing a bunch of imagery concerning things in nature waning, as a symbol for the gradual waning of life and the onset of death. Shakespeare's excellence as a wordsmith shines through towards the end of the poem in the line, "born on the bier with white and bristly beard." This word has a double meaning,  including the bier upon which bodies of the deceased are borne to their resting places. In the last four lines of the poem Shakespeare begins to articulate on how beauty fades much these other natural things, and personifies time as an inescapable, omnipotent individual. Of course in the final line Shakespeare offers the inevitable solution of having a child as the only means of besting Death.