Sonnet 3 form of a Shakespearean sonnet: fourteen decasyllabic, iambic pentameter lines, that form three quatrains and a concluding rhyming couplet. It follows the form's rhyme scheme: "abab cdcd efef gg". Each line of the first quatrain of Sonnet 3 exhibits a final extrametrical syllable or "feminine ending". The first line additionally exhibits an initial reversal: In this sonnet, the poet is urging the 'fair youth' to preserve something of himself and something of the image he sees in the mirror by fathering a child, "Now is the time that face should form another". The message is reiterated in the last lines
Sonnet 63 as he, the poet, is now. The passing of time will drain the young man’s blood, carve wrinkles in his face, erode and wear away all of his beauty. Time will eventually take away the young man. To prevent the young man’s beauty being cut from memory, this sonnet will be read and will preserve the memory of the young man’s beauty. Unlike Sonnet 2, in which immortality is gained through procreation, here it is gained in the reading of this poem ("these black lines"). Sonnet 63 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed