Sonnet 19 claims that Time may destroy anything else in the world, but it must not age the young man’s face, and that even if Time does, the poet’s verse will keep him young forever.
Sonnet 19: Full Poem
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Text from the 1609 Quarto, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernized.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Sonnet 19 for quick reference.
What Sonnet 19 Means
Sonnet 19 speaks directly to Time, first giving it permission to destroy, then forbidding it one thing, and finally defying it.
The first quatrain tells Time to go ahead with its usual work. It may blunt the lion’s claws, make the earth swallow the creatures it produces, pull the teeth from the tiger’s jaws, and burn even the phoenix, the mythical bird said to live for centuries.
The second quatrain widens the permission. Time may make the seasons happy or sad as it rushes past, and it may do whatever it likes to the whole world and all its fading pleasures. Then, at line 8, the speaker draws a line: there is one terrible crime that he forbids.
The third quatrain names it. Time must not carve wrinkles into the young man’s forehead or draw lines there with its old pen. It should leave him untouched as it passes, so that he can remain the model of beauty for the generations to come.
The couplet abandons the plea. Do your worst, the speaker tells Time. Whatever harm you do him, he will stay young forever in my poetry.
Sonnet 19 Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Themes
Sonnet 19 sets Time’s power against the poet’s, and its themes follow the three stages of that contest.
Time as Destroyer
The opening lines show Time at its most violent. It is “devouring,” it blunts claws and pulls teeth, and it makes the earth eat its own children. Even the fiercest animals and the longest-lived creature of legend are powerless against it. The poem grants all of this without argument, as though Time’s destruction of the natural world were simply a fact.
The One Exception
Against that whole list, the speaker sets a single face. Aging the young man is not one more ordinary loss but “one most heinous crime,” a phrase that treats a wrinkle as an offense against the order of things. The reason he gives is not only love: the young man should be preserved as “beauty’s pattern,” the model that later generations will copy.
Poetry Against Time
The couplet admits that Time will probably not obey, and turns to the only power the speaker actually has. “My love shall in my verse ever live young.” It is the same promise made in Sonnet 18: the poem itself will keep the young man alive, whatever happens to his body. For more on this idea across the sequence, see our guide to Shakespeare’s major themes.
Form and Language
Sonnet 19 is built as a direct address, and its language moves from commands to a prohibition to a challenge.
Meter and Rhyme
The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, but its turns do not fall in the usual places. The first turn comes early, at line 8, and a second arrives with the couplet’s “Yet.” The last line only fits the meter if “ever” is run together into something close to “e’er,” so the final promise, “ever live young,” is squeezed tight.
Apostrophe
The whole poem is an apostrophe, a speech addressed to something that cannot answer. Time is treated as a person who can be given orders, bargained with, and finally dared. The young man, by contrast, never hears a word: he is “my love” and “him,” discussed in the third person as the thing being fought over.
Imperatives
The first seven lines are a string of commands: “blunt,” “make,” “pluck,” “burn,” “make,” “do.” The speaker sounds like the one in charge, ordering Time to do what it would do anyway. The grammar then shifts at line 8 to “I forbid thee,” and at line 9 to “carve not,” so the orders become prohibitions at exactly the point where the speaker has something to lose.
Lines and the Antique Pen
Line 10 imagines Time as a writer, drawing “lines” on the young man’s face with its “antique pen.” The lines are wrinkles, but the word also points to the lines of the poem itself. “Antique” means old, and in Shakespeare’s time the same spelling could also mean “antic,” grotesque or clownish. Time and the poet are both writing on the same subject, and the couplet asks whose lines will last. Our guide to literary devices in the sonnets covers puns like this in more detail.
A Closer Reading
Sonnet 19 is a negotiation that fails, and the phoenix in line 4 shows why the poet can afford to lose it.
The first eight lines read like an offer. The speaker hands Time the lion, the tiger, the earth’s creatures, the seasons, and “the wide world and all her fading sweets,” in exchange for a single face. It is a generous trade on paper, but the speaker has nothing to trade: Time was going to take all of these things anyway. The bargain is a fiction, and by line 13 the speaker knows it. “Yet do thy worst” concedes that the prohibition in line 8 will be ignored.
The phoenix is the one item on Time’s list that does not fit. The lion loses its claws and the tiger its teeth, but the phoenix, in legend, is the bird that burns and rises again from its own ashes. To “burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood” is to give Time a victory that does not stick. Of all the creatures in the first quatrain, the phoenix is the only one Time cannot truly destroy.
That is the model the couplet follows. The young man will age, and in that sense Time will win, just as it burns the phoenix. But he will be renewed in “my verse,” where each new reader brings him back to life as he was. The poem does not stop Time. It builds, in the phoenix and then in itself, a kind of survival that Time’s fire cannot reach.
Read this way, Sonnet 19 marks a step in the sequence. The Procreation Sonnets had asked the young man to defeat Time by having children. From Sonnet 15 to Sonnet 17, the poet offers his verse as a second way. Here, children are not mentioned at all: the poet’s lines are the only defense left, and he addresses Time directly to say so.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Sonnet 19, answered briefly.
Who Is Sonnet 19 Addressed To?
Time, personified as “Devouring Time.” The young man of the Fair Youth sonnets is the subject of the poem, but he is only spoken about, as “my love.”
What Is the “Heinous Crime” in Sonnet 19?
Aging the young man’s face. The speaker lets Time destroy everything else in the world but forbids it to carve wrinkles into his beloved’s forehead.
Why Does Sonnet 19 Mention the Phoenix?
The phoenix was a mythical bird said to live for centuries, then burn and be reborn from its ashes. It shows how far Time’s power reaches, and it also hints at the one kind of survival Time cannot prevent.
What Does “Antique Pen” Mean?
Time’s old pen, which draws wrinkles on the young man’s face. “Antique” can also suggest “antic,” meaning grotesque, so the pen is both ancient and cruel.
How Is Sonnet 19 Related to Sonnet 18?
Both end by promising that the poem will keep the young man alive. Sonnet 18 makes the promise to the young man; Sonnet 19 makes it to Time, as a challenge.
Related Sonnets
Three sonnets that take up the same fight against Time.