Sonnet 65, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
     O! none, unless this miracle have might,
     That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Sonnet 65, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

The setting of the Berlin Wall puts political weight to a sonnet so full of weight already from stone, and earth, and steel.  Even the meter is laden with heaviness, that is, from such spondees as "strong hand," "black ink," and "shine bright."  It is about the power of time to overcome and erode all of this, however.  There is a glimmer of hope in the final couplet, which, though subjunctive, is as definitive of statement than anything in the sonnet that precedes it.