Analysis of Sonnet 11 As quickly as you fade away, so quickly do you grow into one of your own from what you turn away, And that fresh blood that when young you give 'st You can call yourself yours when you convert from youth: here lives wisdom, beauty and growth; Without this, madness, old age and cold decay: if everyone thought like this, times would end, and seventy years would make the world disappear. Let those perish whom nature did not create to accumulate, hard, shapeless and rude and sterile. Look, to those who endowed better they gave more; What a generous gift you should treasure with generosity: she has carved you for her seal, and by that she meant that you should print more, not let that copy die. 1-2: 'As time takes hold of you, grow (in attributes) while you leave behind you one of yourself [an heir]'; or, more generally, 'if you pursue two things, leave one and you will improve much more in that aspect'. 3-4: 'And the children to whom (you) would have given life, you will be able to call them yours (me) when you turn away from youth'. 5-6: 'In children (procreation) lies wisdom, beauty and growth (of a good life), however, without children, you are prone to madness, aging and the rest of your life without warming the love (of children)'. 7-8: 'If everyone did as you do, not begetting children, the generations would be no more, and [or your] world would die within (your) sixty years.' 9-10: 'Let those perish whom Nature decides will have no heirs, because they are "harsh, shapeless and rude"'. 13-14: 'She has you as a seal (for the sealing wax, not for the wax itself), and she wanted you to reproduce yourself more through your children, and not to let yourself die without doing so (because life is eternal through children)'.