1. But wherefore do not you a mightier way

2. Make war upon this bloody tyrant, time?

3. And fortify yourself in your decay

4. With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

5. Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

6. And many maiden gardens yet unset,

7. With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,

8. Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

9. So should the lines of life that life repair

10. Which this, Time's pencil (or my pupil pen)

11. Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,

12. Can make you live yourself in eyes of men,

13. To give away yourself keeps yourself still,

14. And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.

You Must Live

Dedication: To Elizabeth

Asking Elizabeth how besides his verse does she fortify herself for immortality against her impending death. Then reminding her of the Henry through the recurrent metaphor of flowers who he tells her bares a better resemblance to her than her own portraits. Then tells her that neither Time’s pencil (Henry) or his pen (verse) will alone make her live in the infamy. She give away her own image as a Virgin Queen and must recognize Henry to provide the “drawing” of her “own sweet skill”.

1^st Quatrain: (1-4)

Rhetorically asking her how she might find a better way of restoring herself other than his verse clearly implying that it is her son that should be this fortifying force, this the “mightier way”.

2^nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Appealing her to use what was produced in the joyous time they were together. Line 7 a reference to Henry in asking her to bear her "living flowers". Telling her that Henry is a better reproduction of her than her painted portraits in line 8.

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

Expressing that neither what she has done or his verse can make her live on and though she herself can't live "the lines of life that life repair" offers the chance through Henry that she does live on in a sense.

couplet (13-14),

Expressing again that Henry will provides a metaphorical self-portrait of her in essence thus depicted by "her own sweet skill".

Commentary:

Oxford expressing again the metaphor of renewal through Henry and Elizabeth’s ability to fight Time. In the couplet Oxford again returning to the metaphor of Henry as a drawing of Elizabeth which obvious on the level of procreation is not the full procreation metaphor to come. I believe it clearly should be apparent that it is written to someone in a more advanced stage of life. Most importantly though is the line about “bearing your living flowers”, the operative word being living, which Oxford contrasts to the Elizabeth’s portrait to express her likeness and legacy. But also the argument of continued living while possible to a younger person who may die at any time is far more apt for the situation Elizabeth now finds herself.

The first (the last by common count) in what is typically thought of as asking the youth to marry and procreate. The very common and correct belief that the fair youth is Henry Wriothesley now reveals that the powers that be, Burghley et all, were expecting Henry, (a ward in Burghely’s care) to marry Susan de Vere, a woman revealed by this treatment to be his half-sister. It should be no wonder that Henry refused and paid the steep penalty (5000 lbs.).