poetry #4

poetry #4
Neal Chapman
sonnet Vl

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
   Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
   To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

Title: the title of the sonnet is just sonnet Vl, i don't think that this title had very much thinking behind it.

paraphrase: i think the poem is trying to tell a girl to not grow old with time, but the poet knows that growing old is part of life.

connotation: in the first two lines when the poet is talking about summer and winter, i think he is talking about time passing in general, and not specific seasons. the last two lines are telling the girl that she is much to pretty for death to turn her body into a home for worms.

Tone: i think the the poet is talking in a deppresed kind of love he is in love with this girl =, but instead of seeing the good parts, all he can see is her dying in the end.

shift: before the last two lines, the poet is talking about what the death would do for him, and how sad it would make him. in the last two lines he shifts to talking about the girl directly.

title: once again the title is just a number.

theme: i think that the theme of this poem is knowing the inevitable. the poet knows that hte girl will die eventually and cannot stop thinking of that point.