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Time SONNET NO. 65        Since brass, nor stone, nor earth nor boundless sea,      But sad mortality o'er sways their power,      How with this rage  shall beauty hold a plea,      Whose action is no stronger than a flower?      0, how shall summers honey breath hold out,      Against the wrackful  siege of battering days,      When rocks impregnable are not so stout,      Nor gates of steel so strong but time  decays?      O fearful meditation!  Where alack,      Shall times best jewel from times chest  lie hid      Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?      Or who his spoil to beauty can forbid?      0, none, unless this miracle have might      That in black ink  my love shall still shine bright.

  Here once more, Bacon is meditating that in due course time
destroys everything on this earth-brass, stone, rocks, gates of
steel, nothing can hold back the foot of time or forbid what time does either good or bad but that in verse (black ink) he can make his love shine bright.

  Note in Sonnet No.63 a reference to Black  lines and in above
sonnet a reference to black  ink both referring to print.

 

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