The speaker is talking to a close friend, insisting that this person never seems to age in his eyes. Three years have passed since they first met — winters stripped the trees of summer’s pride, springs yellowed into autumn, April scents were scorched away by June heat — but the friend’s beauty still looks as fresh as on that first day. Then doubt slips in. He begins to worry that beauty might be fading like a sundial’s shadow, so gradually you can’t see it move. That lovely hue, which he wants to believe is standing still, might actually be changing, and his own eye could be fooled. This fear pushes him into a heartfelt, almost defiant claim to future ages: even before you were born, beauty’s summer was already dead — because the friend was its unmatched high point. The mood is tender but uneasy, an intimate mixture of deep love and quiet dread at time’s invisible thievery.
Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old — Summary
To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I ey'd, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold, Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd, In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd: For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred: Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.