Sonnet 107 claims that the speaker’s love, which he and the world had feared was nearing its end, has outlasted a time of public danger, and that his poem will now preserve both him and the young man after the monuments of tyrants have worn away.
Sonnet 107: Full Poem
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.
Text from the 1609 Quarto, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernized.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Sonnet 107 for quick reference.
What Sonnet 107 Means
Sonnet 107 seems to point outward to public events, and it has been much debated for that reason. Its argument, though, is clear: a period of dread has passed, the speaker’s love has survived it, and his verse will outlast Death.
The first quatrain describes the love as a “lease,” a contract for a limited term. It had been “Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom,” expected to expire at a fixed date. But neither his own fears nor “the prophetic soul / Of the wide world,” the collective forecasting of what is to come, has the power to end it.
The second quatrain explains why the mood has changed. “The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured”: some danger symbolized by the moon has passed. The prophets of disaster now “mock their own presage,” laughing at their failed predictions. Uncertain things “crown themselves assured,” and peace announces “olives of endless age,” the olive branch being the traditional sign of peace.
At line 9, the speaker turns from the world to himself. In this “balmy” time, his love “looks fresh,” and Death “subscribes,” or submits, to him. The reason is the poem itself. The speaker will live “in this poor rhyme,” while Death lords it over the “dull and speechless tribes,” people who leave no written record.
The couplet addresses the young man directly for the first time in the poem. He too will find his “monument” in this verse, which will last after “tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.”
Sonnet 107 Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Themes
Sonnet 107 sets private love against public history, and its themes concern what survives when the world’s fears come true or fail to.
Love Outlasting Fear and Prophecy
The poem opens by denying that fear and prophecy have any authority over the speaker’s love. That denial is borne out by the second quatrain, in which the professional forecasters, the “sad augurs,” are left mocking “their own presage.” The speaker’s love was expected to end, and it has not. Like Sonnet 116, which insists that love “bears it out even to the edge of doom,” Sonnet 107 treats love as something that survives the deadlines others set for it. The word “doom” appears in both poems, though here it means a fixed term rather than Judgment Day, the sense it is usually given in Sonnet 116.
Public History and Private Love
The second quatrain uses the language of state affairs: eclipses, crowns, peace, and prophecy. Whatever event lies behind these lines, the poem folds it into the speaker’s private story. The poem does not say that the public event saved the love, only that the two recoveries arrived together, and the speaker reads the world’s good news as a sign for his own.
Poetry as Monument
The final six lines return to a familiar claim of the sequence: verse lasts longer than stone or metal. Sonnet 55 begins “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments / Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme,” and Sonnet 81 promises, “Your monument shall be my gentle verse.” Sonnet 107 adds a political edge to the claim. The monuments that will be “spent” belong to “tyrants,” so the poem places itself above earthly power as well as earthly time. For the wider picture, see Shakespeare’s major themes.
Form and Language
Sonnet 107 mixes the vocabulary of law, prophecy, and politics, and its fifth line has been read in several competing ways.
Meter and Rhyme
The poem follows the usual Shakespearean pattern of three quatrains and a couplet in iambic pentameter. Two rhymes are approximate: “come” with “doom,” and “monument” with “spent,” which rhymes on the light last syllable of “monument.” The rhyme of “presage” with “age” suggests that “presage” is stressed on its second syllable here.
The “Mortal Moon”
Line 5 is much disputed, and readers have proposed several events behind it. Many readers connect it with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. Poets of the period often figured the queen as Cynthia or Diana, the moon goddess, and on this reading her “eclipse” is her death, the “sad augurs” are those who feared civil strife over the succession, and the “crown” and “peace” of lines 7 and 8 describe the peaceful accession of James I. Readers who identify the young man with the Earl of Southampton add that he was released from the Tower of London in 1603, which would give the “confined doom” of line 4 a literal sense. Others connect the line with the Spanish Armada of 1588, a fleet said to have sailed in a crescent formation, so that the moon’s eclipse would be its defeat. Still others think the line describes the queen surviving a period of danger, such as an illness or her sixty-third year, which was traditionally thought perilous. Some readers take it as a literal eclipse or as a general image of change. None of these readings has been proved, and each depends on assumptions about when the sonnet was written.
“Endured”
The verb in line 5 is ambiguous in a way that matters to the debate. “Hath her eclipse endured” can mean that the moon has undergone her eclipse, in the sense of suffering it, or that she has come through it and survived. The first sense suits a reading about death or defeat; the second suits a reading about survival. The line supports both, which is part of why the debate has not been settled.
Legal Language and the “Prophetic Soul”
The opening quatrain treats love as property held on terms. A “lease” runs for a set period, “forfeit” is what happens when its terms are broken, and Death later “subscribes,” signing his submission like a party to a contract. Set against this legal vocabulary is “the prophetic soul / Of the wide world,” a phrase that recalls Hamlet’s cry, “O my prophetic soul!” when the Ghost reveals his father’s murderer. In the sonnet, though, the prophetic soul turns out to be wrong, and the contract holds.
A Closer Reading
Sonnet 107 mocks prophecy and then ends with a prophecy of its own, and its confidence depends on the reader accepting that the poet’s forecast is different from the augurs’.
The first eight lines are a catalogue of failed predictions. The speaker’s own “fears,” the world’s “prophetic soul,” and the “sad augurs” all foresaw an ending, and all were wrong. The augurs “mock their own presage,” and the “Incertainties” that once made everyone anxious now “crown themselves assured.” Whatever the historical event, the poem is written just after a danger has passed, in the brief and slightly giddy moment when relief makes everything look permanent, as the phrase “olives of endless age” suggests.
The sestet then performs exactly the kind of forecasting the octave ridiculed. The speaker predicts that he will “live in this poor rhyme,” that Death will rule only over the “speechless,” and that the young man will “find” his monument here long after brass has decayed. These are prophecies too. The difference the poem claims is that the speaker’s forecast rests on something he controls, the written word, while the augurs’ forecasts rest on guesswork about events. The poet does not guess the future; he makes the record that the future will read.
One detail of that sestet is easy to miss. The speaker secures his own survival before the young man’s. “Death to me subscribes,” “I’ll live in this poor rhyme,” and only then, in the couplet, “thou in this shalt find thy monument.” In Sonnet 81, the speaker expects to be forgotten while the young man lives on in verse. Sonnet 107 is bolder. The poet places himself among the remembered and calls his rhyme “poor” in the same line that claims it can defeat Death.
By naming “tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass,” the speaker sets his verse against the memorials of the powerful, figures of the kind whose affairs the second quatrain seems to touch. The speaker’s claim is that private love, written down, will outlast the political events that briefly overshadowed it, and the long debate over the “mortal moon” is, in its way, evidence for him: the event has grown uncertain, while the poem is still read.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Sonnet 107, answered briefly.
Who Is Sonnet 107 Addressed To?
The young man of the Fair Youth sonnets. Sonnets 1 to 126 are generally read as addressed to him. Here he is “my true love” in line 3 and is spoken to directly as “thou” in the couplet.
What Is the “Mortal Moon” in Sonnet 107?
No one knows for certain. Readings include the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the queen surviving a period of danger, and a literal eclipse. Each reading implies a different date for the poem, and none has been proved.
What Does “Confined Doom” Mean?
It means a limited or fixed term, the date at which the lease of the speaker’s love was expected to run out. Some readers who link the poem to 1603 also hear a reference to imprisonment.
Why Does Death “Subscribe” to the Speaker?
“Subscribe” means to submit or yield. Death gives way to the speaker because the poem will keep him alive in “this poor rhyme,” while Death triumphs only over those with no written memorial.
Where Is the Volta in Sonnet 107?
At line 9, with “Now with the drops of this most balmy time.” The poem turns from the public events of the first eight lines to the speaker’s renewed love and the power of his verse.
Related Sonnets
Three related sonnets make the same claim that verse outlasts monuments and time.