By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
We are getting into very different territory from that in which the Sonnets began, way back in that opening sonnet. ‘My glass shall not persuade me I am old’ is a world away from ‘From fairest creatures we desire increase’ in terms of its depth of feeling for the addressee. Here we’re going to analyse Shakespeare’s Sonnet 22 in terms of its language and meaning.
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O! therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.