Sonnet 60 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young beloved. Synopsis Sonnet 60 focuses upon the theme of the passing of time. This is one of the major themes of Shakespeare's sonnets, it can be seen in Sonnet 1 as well. Like sonnets 1-126, Sonnet 60 is addressed to "a fair youth" whose identity is debated. In the last two lines (the couplet) the speaker says that his verse will live on and therefore make the beauty of the beloved immortal. The sonnet compares minutes to waves on a pebbled shore regularly replacing each other. Time is also depicted as a gift giver and also as a gift destroyer. Form and structure Sonnet 60 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the form's typical rhyme, abab cdcd efef gg and is written a type of poetic metre called iambic pentameter based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The thirteenth line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter: × / × / × / × / × / And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, (60.13) / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. Helen Vendler calls Sonnet 60 "one of the perfect examples of the 4-4-4-2 Shakespearean sonnet form". According to Vendler, "Each quatrain introduces a new and important modification in concept and tone, while the couplet—here a "reversing" couplet contradicting the body of the sonnet—adds yet a fourth dimension". In other words, Vendler is arguing that each section of the poem offers new insight and content; therefore, there are four distinct parts or "dimensions" of the sonnet—each quatrain is not merely expressing the same idea, while the couplet is not simply summarizing the quatrains. Sonnet 60 incorporates a large number of trochees, feet with a metrically strong followed by a metrically weak syllabic position (/ ×) in place of an iamb (× /). Vendler writes that the first two lines of the sonnet begin with trochees, which "draw attention to the hastening of the waves, the attacks by eclipses and by Time, and the countervailing praising by verse". According to Robert Arbour, after these initial trochees, Shakespeare ends each of these first two lines with