And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Commonly the concluding couplet contains an independent thought which gives a conclusion to the poem. In certain cases, however, the thought of the previous stanza is carried on in the closing couplet by means of a run-on line, as is the case in Nos. 71, 72, 108, 154, &c. Sometimes, of course, a run-on line connects different portions of the sonnet also, as e.g. Nos. 114, 129, 154, &c. The rhymes, as a rule, are masculine, but not exclusively so.