"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past, / I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, / And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste"
— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Thomas Thorpe
Date
1609
Metaphor
"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past, / I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, / And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste"
Metaphor in Context
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
Categories
Provenance
Reading Toulmin's "The Inwardness of Mental Life" in Critical Inquiry 1979 (9)
Citation
See Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer Before Imprinted. (London: By G. Eld for T. T., 1609. <Link to Folger copy in EEBO-TCP> <Link to Huntington copy in EEBO-TCP>
Reading Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1997).
Reading Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1997).
Date of Entry
09/06/2005
