1 When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
When forty winters shall lay siege to your face, When you hit forty and all those years start showing in your forehead, at forty time's attacking your face
2 And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
And carve deep wrinkles in your once-beautiful skin, And wrinkles start carving themselves into your face like trenches, wrinkles everywhere field: beauty as land to be cultivated or defaced
3 Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now,
Your youthful beauty that everyone admires today, That gorgeous look everyone stares at now, that look everyone loves right now livery: uniform, distinctive appearance
4 Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:
Will be treated like a shabby, worthless garment, Will become something people don't even want to look at anymore. nobody will want this anymore
5 Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Then when someone asks where all your beauty went, Then someone will ask: where did all that beauty go? where's your beauty now
6 Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
Where is the treasure of your vibrant youth— Where's all that radiance you had when you were young, where'd your glow go
7 To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
To answer that it's somewhere in your hollowed eyes, To point to your sunken eyes and say it's still there, lost somewhere in your face
8 Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
Would be shameful and empty praise— Would be pathetic and pointless. would be so sad
Volta The argument shifts from bleak vision of aging to the consolation that children would vindicate past beauty and provide an 'excuse' for age.
9 How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,
How much more deserving would it be if your beauty had been used, But if you'd actually used your beauty—created something from it— your beauty should create something
10 If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
If you could say, 'This beautiful child of mine, If you could point to a child and say, 'Look, this beautiful person if you had a beautiful kid
11 Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’
Shall justify my youth and explain my aging,' is proof I was once beautiful too,' proves I was gorgeous
12 Proving his beauty by succession thine.
Their beauty carrying forward the proof of your own. That child carries your beauty forward into the future. your beauty lives on in them
13 This were to be new made when thou art old,
This would be like being reborn even as you grow old, You'd get a second youth—live on through them. you get to be young forever
14 And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
To see your vital youth alive when you yourself feel the chill of age. To see your vitality warm and alive in them when your own body grows cold. your warmth lives on when you fade blood: vitality, youth; lineage