In Sonnet 12, the main theme is the Time and its incessant passing.

Shakespeare describes
time as a deadly merciless power which brings every living creature to its end. The tone of the
sonnet is sober, filled with regret and resignation.

To illustrate the theme, the writer builds the poem on antithesis and oppositions between
beautiful and wilted (ofilit), young and old, life and death.

It is opened by the image of clock, which is the symbol of the continuous passage of time; the
next lines exemplify its effects on the nature and living things, leading eventually to the
human life : the cycle of day and night the light of day always fading in the darkness
brought by the night (See the brave day sunk in hideous night); a flower which has wilted
and its beauty has faded. In the next line the writer describes a man growing older through the
image of his hair turning from black to gray.

In the next lines there are used again images of nature, again leading back to men : all the
green of the nature found in summer is now gone - the trees, whose leaves once provided
shade, are now leafless, left only with their bare branches. This is also a metaphor used for an
old man being carried to his own funeral (Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard).

After contemplating the nature under the influence of time, the writer realizes that nothing
beautiful, men or nature, is built to last, eventually undergoing the power of time and dying,
other beautiful and sweet things taking their place.

In the last 2 lines, the writer concludes that the only way to defy the power of time is by have
children (to breed.)