Sonnet 149 metrical variant, an initial reversal: Initial reversals are potentially present in lines 3, 4, and 14, and a mid-line reversal is potentially present in line 6. The meter demands that line 2's "cruel" be pronounced as two syllables, and line 11's "defect" (although a noun) be stressed on the second syllable. Sonnet 149 Sonnet 149 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is considered a Dark Lady sonnet, as are all from 127 to 152. Sonnet 149 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a
Sonnet 2 child and thereby protect himself from reproach by preserving his beauty against Time's destruction. Sonnet 2 begins with a military siege metaphor, something that occurs often in sonnets and poetry — from Virgil (‘he ploughs the brow with furrows’) and Ovid (‘furrows which may plough your body will come already’) to Shakespeare’s contemporary, Drayton, “The time-plow’d furrows in thy fairest field.” The image is used here as a metaphor for a wrinkled brow. Trenches are also carved into a field when a farmer plows, and the agricultural connotation is touched on two lines later with the image of worthless weeds.