Shakespeare Sonnet 106

SONNET 106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

This sonnet addressed ‘to his dear friend’ is number 106 in sonnet sequence consisting of 154 sonnets. A number of his sonnets are addressed to ‘W.H.’ and others to a mysterious person, often referred to as the ‘dark lady’. W.H. has sometimes been identified with the Earl of Southampton, one of Shakespeare’s closest friends and patrons, to whom this poem is addressed. In this sonnet, Shakespeare has idealized his friendship and described ‘W.H.’ as having brilliant beauty surpassing all others, past and present.
In the opening stanza of the poem the poet talks of the description of beauty in the chronicles. He says that when he reads about the most beautiful persons in the history of past and the poetry added to the beauty of the description of the dead ladies and graceful knights.
The poets of the past carried the distinction of describing the beauty at its best – of all parts of the body including hands, feet, lips, eyes and brow. The poet says after reading the chronicles he feels that the poets were so experienced and good at it that they would have expressed the beauty now possessed by the poets’ friend.
In the third stanza the poet writes that in this way all their accolades prove nothing but the foretelling of the poet’s time, that is, the beauty of his friend. In the very next line the poet says all the description given before hand with the prophetic eyes of the poets was not enough. Their virtues could not match qualities of his friend.
In the last stanza the poet says that he and his contemporaries who are a witness to present times have only eyes to admire the beauty of the poet’s friend. They don’t have words to express it.
Hence, in this sonnet the poet analyzes the relevance of the skill of the poet’s beauty of the past to that of the real beauty of his friend.