The sonnets to the young man end with "Sonnet 126." In this poem the speaker makes a final plea for the young man to realize that his youth and beauty, although they may seem to last for a long time, cannot last forever.
In this final sonnet the poet also repeats the personification of two figures: Time and Nature. Once again the poet depicts Time as a destructive force that will obliterate the youth and beauty of the young man. And once again the poet depicts Nature as the creation goddess who is still in love with her favorite creation, the young man.
In the first quatrain the speaker suggests that the young man, even though he has grown older over the past few years, still appears youthful and beautiful. Thus, the speaker describes the young man as holding power over time (in lines 1-2). One of the props or pieces of equipment that Time carries is the "fickle glass." The word glass refers to a mirror here. But, like all mirrors, it is fickle because it does not keep the image that it contained in the past. As we grow older, the image that we see in the mirror changes. In this sonnet, though, the speaker is suggesting that the image of the young man has not changed in the years that he has known him. In growing older ("waning"), the young man has actually become more beautiful ("grown") while his