The poems were probably written over a period of several years.

The first 17 sonnets, traditionally called the procreation sonnets, are written to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalise his beauty by passing it to the next generation.

Other sonnets express the speaker's love for a young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life.

The final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little Love-god" Cupid.
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