William Shakespeare: Sonnet III

The young man that Shakespeare writes about in the sonnets is encouraged to marry and have children. Seeing himself in the mirror, he sees his mother in himself, and can also imagine his own offspring. If he dies without producing children, his line ends and he is forgotten. 

Sonnet III

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime:

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

                But if thou live, remember’d not to be,

                Die single, and thine image dies with thee.