Shakespeare’s third sonnet grabs a young man by the shoulders and pushes him in front of a mirror. The speaker insists that the face he sees now must “form another” — have a child — before time wears it away. There’s an edge of impatience in the argument: why would any woman refuse him, and why would he be so selfish as to let his own beauty die with him, becoming its tomb? The poem shifts tone when it reminds him that his mother once saw her own April youth reflected in him. Through a child, he can look past his future wrinkles and recover this golden moment. The closing couplet strikes like a slap: if he stays single and forgotten, his image vanishes forever. The mood is one of tender urgency — a mix of flattery, logic, and a faint, loving scold.
Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest — Summary
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another; Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb, Of his self-love to stop posterity? Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. But if thou live, remember'd not to be, Die single and thine image dies with thee.