I sigh, I’m saddened thinking of all the things I wanted in the past, assuming I did not get them.Īnd I waste my time crying over these things again. I sigh at the lack of all the things I sought. This is what happens when I’m quietly thinking. In many of Shakespeare’s sonnets we find a similar pattern of when X, X and X, I Y and this is about as good of an example as we get. This is the when part of the sonnet, the proposition. Fīut if the while I think on thee, dear friend, GĪll loss es are re stored, and sorr ows end.

The sad ac count of fore -be moan èd moan, E Then can I grieve at griev an c es fore gone, EĪnd heav il y from woe to woe tell o’er F

Then can I drown an eye un used to flow, Cįor prec ious friends hid in death’s date less night, DĪnd weep a fresh love’s long since can celled woe, CĪnd moan th’ ex pense of many a van ished sight. I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, AĪnd with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste. I summ on up re mem brance of things past, B When to the sessi ons of sweet si lent thought A Then I can grieve again for things I’d stopped grievingĪnd sadly I can relive all of the things once moreĪs if I hadn’t been pained enough alreadyīut if I think of you dear friend while I do thisĪll my losses come back to me, and all of my sorrows end Verse Breakdown Then my eyes which do not usually cry can be drowned with tearsĪnd cry again for love that I’d long forgotten I sigh at the lack of the things I sought afterĪnd I waste my time crying over these things again When to those moments of sweet and silent reflection Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,īut if the while I think on thee, dear friend,Īll losses are restored, and sorrows end. I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,Īnd with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.įor precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,Īnd weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,Īnd moan th’ expense of many a vanished sight. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought With all that being said, let’s have a geez anyway and see what we can find. Who the poet is talking to we can’t be sure, it is in the fair youth phase of the sonnets so we could surmise that this is directed at the fair youth, but there is not really anything that explicably tells us that, instead we get ‘dear friend’ and that’s about all. In this sonnet the poet is essentially saying when I get down thinking of the bad things of my past, I think of you, and all my sorrows vanish. The premise is relatively simple, and one could argue is a solid case study in Shakespeare’s use of repetition throughout his work. However, this sonnet, however beautiful it is, is actually fairly straight forward as far as Shakespeare goes.

Now before we get into this I’d like to say, this being a sonnet breakdown we generally try and mine as much from the text as we can without going overboard.

Shakespeare sonnet 30