The first-person narrator of the sonnet is an observant and melancholy individual who contemplates the relentless forward march of moments. He acutely feels the fleeting nature of youth and the inevitability of mortality, describing human life as a brief period of light quickly overshadowed by dark eclipses. Desperate to protect what he loves from physical decay, he turns to his own poetry as a defense mechanism against natural destruction.

A beautiful young man who serves as the speaker's primary subject of affection and artistic inspiration. He represents the pinnacle of human beauty and the absolute prime of life. Because of his physical perfection, he is highly vulnerable to the natural decay brought on by aging and the passing years.

An impersonal but deeply cruel force that acts as the primary adversary to all living things. Time operates initially as a nurturer that brings human beauty to its peak, only to immediately transform into a destroyer that tears that beauty down. Armed with a scythe, this entity acts as a grim reaper that indiscriminately harvests human life and physical perfection.