hy _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 delay'd, answer'd must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.

This is the last Sonnet which the poet addresses to his friend. Except
the last two, all that follow are of his mistress, and are of the same
theme as Sonnets XL., XLI., and XLII., and, we may fairly infer, are
of the same date. If so, Sonnet CXXVI. is practically the very latest
of the entire series, and we may deem it a leave-taking, perhaps not
of his friend, but of the labor that had so long moved him. Perhaps
for that reason its words should be deemed more significant, and it
should be read and considered more carefully.[12] All its thoughts
seem responsive to the central suggestion that his friend appears much
younger than he is. To the poet he seems still a boy because he has so
held the youth and freshness of boyhood that it is not inappropriate
to say that he holds in his power the glass of Time; Nature has
plucked him back to show her triumph over Time, but she cannot
continue to do so, but will require of him full audit for all his
years.

For what age do such expressions seem natural as words of compliment;
and when first would it have pleased us to be told that we looked
younger than we were, and to one that loved us, still seemed but as a
boy? Hardly much before thirty; till then we took but little account
of years and would have preferred to be told that we seemed manlier
rather than younger than we were. But on this let us further consult
our poet. He tells us that at ten begins the age of the whining
school-boy; at twenty of the lover, sighing like a furnace, and that
of the soldier, a vocation of manhood, at thirty.[13] To me it seems
very clear that the rich poetic fancy of this Sonnet would be greatly
lessened by assuming it to be addressed to a person below twenty-five
years of age, and if it came, as may hereafter appear, from a person
of fifty years or over, its caressing compliments and admonition would
seem quite appropriate for one who had reached the fourth age of life.
The indication of the last four Sonnets, to which I have referred, I
submit, is in enti