1. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

2. But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,

3. How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

4. Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

5. O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out,

6. Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

7. When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

8. Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?

9. O fearful meditation, where alack,

10. Shall Time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid?

11. Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,

12. Or who his spoil or beauty can forbid?

13. O none, unless this miracle have might,

14. That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Hidden Jewel

Dedication: To All (Most likely for Elizabeth’s benefit)

Referring to Elizabeth’s intransigence with respect to Henry and her own mortality, Oxford asks metaphorically how is Henry’s flower to sway her to utilize Henry when none of the seemingly more permanent and powerful arguments have. Openly worrying of the possibility of Henry’s jewel staying hidden. He finally expresses his hope for the desperate possibility that his pen and his love will ultimately work a miracle on Elizabeth.

1^st Quatrain: (1-4)

Asking Elizabeth how Henry is expected to make the appropriate impression on her and her Privy Counsel most likely when their own death appears to be the only likely tool to unlock their power. Asking her how beauty (Henry) can be expected to sway them. Again tying back Henry's identity as being that of the flower.

2^nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Asking Elizabeth if she can still weather the onslaught of father time.

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

Asking her again if Henry is to remain hidden.

couplet (13-14),

Hoping that this appeal and the constancy of his love will be apparent and will have some effect on her so that she will recognize Henry.

Commentary:

This sonnet is a commentary on permanence of course but also the importance and weakness of mortality and the futile and ineffective ways that immortality is attempted through physical representation. And Oxford offers another form of immortality to reveal the truth he wants told that of his verse with the expression of it’s immortality in line 14. Henry as the hidden jewel of line 10 is mention in line 10 which of reminiscent of line 6 in 96 and will also appear in 52, 48 and 27. In addition to better establishing this metaphor of jewel(s), this sonnet is important for the establishing the interconnectedness of the metaphors and symbolism of both beauty and flowers and equating them in lines 3 and 4. But also speaking of the “spoil of beauty” in 12 and asking if it is to be forbid. This connects the metaphor akin to the “bounty” referred to in these sonnets with that of the “beauty”.

In addition adding to this is the importance of each to the immortality of something of much greater import and something referred to as a miracle. Both of course very clear and true with respect to the meaning presented here. It also shows that Oxford’s language in reference to Elizabeth has changed, with the now “wreckful siege of battering days” metaphorically representing the fact that she now likely legitimately elderly. Another aspect it seems to me is the urgency as an arrow for revealing the chronology. Thus this poem has the poet in one of his more desperate early pleas to recognize Henry.

As we will see they become more frequent until the time when the poet must reflect on her passing as he does in the poem the “Phoenix and the Turtle”. The talk of brass and stone as that of the monument for his subject should be understood in light of who his subject was someone befitting a monument. In addition the mention of the jewel that is hid should hark back to early sonnets that discuss very similar themes in sections where he speaks of the evil of the subject, that “Dark Lady”. The mention of the existence of a miracle which of course refers to Henry. Which is actually not so far off the mark. Elizabeth having been born in 1533 would have been approximately 40 years old when she had him. Likely though not clearly I think this sonnet is in series with 64 and thus reversed from it as discussed earlier.

Vendler after a very difficult to understand analysis mentions that the “changing of beauty from organic to inorganic form enables Shakespeare to “save” the beloved. She seemingly ignores the interrogative nature of the sonnet other than to say of the where, what strong hand, and who – “the author modestly answers only the first (question), but by his answer in black in – implies the answers to the other two: my hand, I. Her analysis seems to me never to answer the question of what times’ best jewel represents or provide any insight into why beauty’s action is no stronger than a flower.