The first sentence is a recollection of the past while the second sentence brings us back to the present. The first quatrain starts the first sentence, in it Shakespeare starts by talking about the past. He wrote that when he read certain older books which he described as beautiful, they were a description of the beauty of ladies that are now dead and also of lovely knights. The first quatrain has a clear message, there are no allegories or metaphors present, it is simply an introduction to what Shakespeare will be addressing in the next quatrain.
He mentions certain things in the first quatrain which are very important to understanding the text. He wrote “ When in the chronicle of wasted time, I see descriptions of the fairest wights” (ln 1). If taken literally this could mean that he is talking about an individual which is wasting time by being unproductive but Shakespeare is referring to a period of time that is now far gone in the past. It is a recollection of history. He also wrote “beauty making beautiful old rhyme”; in this line he is describing the books as beautiful and they are beautiful because they have been inspired by beautiful people. (ln