Sonnet · Life
Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.
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“Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-126
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 12 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Life
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 12 lines · one 12-line stanza
- Line length
- Lines run 10-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Shakespeare1564–1616
- Source record
- PoetryDBSonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power by william-shakespeare, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 b98750117d604cde…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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