Reflection for Sonnet 12

The first line of this sonnet starts out describing the ticking of a clock. Shakespeare also wrote the line to include a lot of hard letters to imitate the actual ticking on a clock. In the second line, the speaker talks about the "brave day" and "hideous night", which likely symbolize life and death, respectively. The brave day is being sunk in the hideous night, and this means aging. The first eight lines talk about aging in nature. These lines also seem to go in a sort of chronological order through the seasons. The second line talks about a dying violet, the fourth line talks about a tree without leaves (like Fall), and the eighth line mentions a white and bristly beard similar to snow. Lines seven and eight talk about a wheelbarrow carrying items, but the word for wheelbarrow can also mean a corpse, so this could be a reference also to the man being carried away to his funeral. The last two lines tell how the only way to defend yourself against time is to have children, because then your physical traits will be carried on.