Sonnet 107 by William Shakespeare is a love poem which makes use of astrological conceits and current references to demonstrate the constancy and eternal nature of the poet's love. A key element is the idea that through the poem, as through love itself, the poet can overcome death and make death submit to him. He does this with a rationale argument couched in terms of competing ideas, something seen in much of Donne's poetry as well, notably in number 17 of his "Holy Sonnets."
Shakespeare begins the sonnet with the statement that his love cannot be stopped either by his own fears or by any prophecies of disasters to come. Such prophecies were common in Elizabethan times, and love overcoming fear of disaster is a common literary theme, whether the disaster be a small one or a major cataclysm. In the Elizabethan era, the concept of the Great Chain of Being prevailed, with the human being standing at the center between heaven and earth and subject to the vagaries of the elements. Auguries provided the human being with signs as to what would happen in the future, and the relative stability of the earthly realm would be mirrored in the heavens so that dissension in the realm would be seen in storms and the like in the wider world. This is evident in this poem with the references to Elizabeth as the "mortal moon" who has "her eclipse endured," showing that she has come through a difficult time so that now any augurs of disaster are seen as mocking their own prescience, meaning that they are laughing at themselves because they were wrong in their claims that disaster was about to strike. Numerology enters into this concern for the future given that the eclipse of Elizabeth is thought to be her climacteric year, or her sixty-third, considered to be notable because 63 is the product of two "significant" numbers, 7 and 9.
Shakespeare links the individual and the world at large in the first two lines when he notes first his own f...