Shakespeare's Sonnets: XIII

None of us can control completely the length of our lives or what will happen in them. The poet seems to be urging us (especially the young man from previous sonnets) to make hay while the sun shines. Again, he suggests marriage and family as a way of carrying on. The young man had a father, let his son say the same thing.

Sonnet XIII

O! that you were yourself; but, love, you are

No longer yours, than you yourself here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give:

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself’s decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold,

Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day

And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?

                O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

                You had a father: let your son say so.