Sonnet 7
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Lo! in the orient when the gracious light |
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| –William Shakespeare | ||
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Sonnet 7 is a sonnet by William Shakespeare.
[edit] Synopsis
When the sun rises everyone admires it, even as it reached maturity in the middle of the day, but as it declines people turn their attention elsewhere. The same will happen to you unless you have a child.
[edit] Analysis
This sonnet introduces new imagery, comparing the Youth to a morning sun, looked up to by lesser beings. But as he grows older he will be increasingly ignored unless he has a son to carry forward his identity into the next generation. The poem draws on classical imagery, common in art of the period, in which Helios or Apollo cross the sky in his chariot - an emblem of passing time.
