Sonnet 12

Right off the bat, Shakespeare starts sonnet twelve with a neat play on words. He talks about a clock saying, “when I do count the clock that tells the time”. When that line is read, you find yourself annunciating many t’s and c’s which sounds like “tic toc”, the noise that a clock makes. Life is symbolized by bright, good things and death is symbolized by dark, and gloomy phrases in this sonnet. Also, time is being personified in the last couplet by saying “Time’s scythe” which means time’s destructiveness. This poem is saying that beauty doesn’t last forever and the man will get old and eventually his life will end. I’m confused on the use of the word “bier” and what it actually stands for in this sonnet.