(Sipping Sonnet: Snack-sized Retellings)

Time does not yield. She marches on, consuming every ounce of existence. Titles and statures, wealth and passions, man and beast – all must perish in the slow conquest of Time.
Like a sacrificial priest, the Poet summons the merciless force. Time arrives, brandishing her sickle of destruction.

Come, says the Poet, erode the sharpness of a lion’s claws. Make the Earth gobble all her creations. Pluck out the deadly teeth of the apex predator. Burn the mythical fire-bird in its own hot blood. Let all bones be ground to dust.
Bring with you all of nature’s seasons – the joyous spring, gloomy winter, and raging rain. Do as you please to the whole world and all her residents. Sooner or later they will all fade away. Only you, Time, will remain. Don’t spare anyone; no one but one, begs the Poet.

Keep away your cold blade from my Love. Don’t carve her beauteous face with lines of age and Death. Let her pass you by unharmed, the Poet appeals. Let my Love’s beauty pass on to her bloodline without pain or impediment.
The Poet’s no fool. He knows – Time does not take requests. The Poet stands in her way all the same. Bring it on, Time, the Poet exclaims – all fear exorcised from his being. Reign your terror. Wield your sickle. Do your worst.
Nothing—not even mighty Time—can penetrate the fortress of my love. My Love will stay immortal in my written verse.

Sonnet 19 by William Shakespeare

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-liv’d phœnix in her blood;

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.

Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.