This was recorded two weeks ago, on a day that I woke up and it was dumping snow. I went up Rock Canyon, which was just gorgeous. Now, just twelve days later, it’s warm and delightful.

Sorry about the sound quality, too. I was not planning to record, and this was just me and my phone.

Text of poem

William Shakespeare’s sonnet 2, “When forty winters shall besiege thy brow”

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,

Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now,

Will be a totter’d weed of small worth held:

Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;

To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,

If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’

Proving his beauty by succession thine!

This were to be new made when thou art old,

And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

This is the second of the “procreation sonnets” and we’ve got a bunch more to go.1 Once we get past the procreation sonnets, things mix up a bit. But for now, the speaker (who might be Shakespeare or might be Shakespeare playing a character) has just one theme: telling the handsome young man to have some babies. Now.

What we see in this poem different from the first sonnet is an extended description of aging. Now, in this sequence, reaching the advanced age of 40 means that you’re *really* old. I take some umbrage at the sentiment. All intelligent people know that when you’re 40, you’re just getting started. Right?

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