Look in your mirror and tell the face you see that it’s time to father a child. These youthful looks, if you do not procreate, will be lost and the world will be denied, as would the potential mother of your child. Particularly, Sonnet 3 focuses on … Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest, Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest, Skip to Content ... Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest By William Shakespeare. Sonnets can also be hitched to one another by repetition: each successive sonnet uses as its first line the last line of the preceding sonnet. Literally a “little song,” the sonnet traditionally reflects upon a single sentiment, with a clarification or “turn” of thought in its concluding lines. Sonnet 3 Translation Look in the mirror and tell your face that now is the time your face should create another (to have a child). The final sonnet ends with the same line that begins the first sonnet, thus completing the circle. The 50 sonnets that make up this long poem are each 16 lines long. Sonnet 3 is part of William Shakespeare’s collection of 154 sonnets, which were first published in a 1609 quarto. The poem is a procreation sonnet within the fair youth sequence, a series of poems that are addressed to an unknown young man. Sonnet A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme originating in Italy and brought to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, earl of Surrey in the 16th century. Your face is fresh and healthy now, but if you don’t reproduce it, you’ll be cheating the world and cursing a woman who would happily be your child’s mother.