Sonnet 15 by William Shakespeare| When I consider everything that grows| summary | literary devices

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Sonnet 15: When I consider everything that grows

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

When I consider everything that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky,

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory;

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay

To change your day of youth to sullied night;

And all in war with Time for love of you,

As he takes from you, I engraft you new.


WORD MEANINGS
Nought : nothing or none
Selfsame : exactly the same
Vaunt : boast about or praise (something), especially excessively
Sap : the fluid in a plant or tree
Conceit : too much pride in yourself and your abilities and importance
Sully : damage the purity or integrity of
Engraft : set or establish


INTRODUCTION
Also known as "When I consider every thing that grows," Sonnet 15 is one of English playwright and poet William Shakespeare's acclaimed 154 sonnets. It is a contained within the Fair Youth sequence, considered traditionally to be from sonnet 1-126 "which recount[s] the speaker's idealized, sometimes painful love for a femininely beautiful, well-born male youth". In another subcategory the sonnet is also contained within what is known as the Procreation sonnets.

[The procreation( the production of offspring; reproduction) sonnets are Shakespeare's sonnets numbers 1 through 17.

Although Sonnet 15 does not directly refer to procreation, the single-minded urgings in the previous sonnets, may suggest to the reader that procreation is intended in the last line: "I engraft you new". Sonnet 16 continues the thought and makes clear that engrafting refers to recreating the young man in "barren rhyme". Sonnet 16 goes on to urge the youth to marry and have children.

They are referred to as the procreation sonnets because they encourage the young man they address to marry and father children. In these sonnets, Shakespeare's speaker several times suggests that the child will be a copy of the young man, who will therefore live on through his child.

The actual historical identity, if any, of the young man is a mystery ]

SUMMARY
In Sonnet 15's first eight lines, the poet surveys how objects mutate — decay — over time: ". . . every thing that grows / Holds in perfection but a little moment." In other words, life is transitory and ever-changing. Even the youth's beauty will fade over time, but because the poet knows that this metamorphosis is inevitable, he gains an even stronger appreciation of the young man's beautiful appearance in the present time — at least in the present time within the sonnet. Ironically, then, the youth's beauty is both transitory and permanent — transitory because all things in nature mutate and decay over time, and permanent because the inevitable aging process, which the poet is wholly aware of as inevitable, intensifies the young man's present beauty: Generally, the more momentary an object lasts, the more vibrant and intense is its short life span.