Sonnet 30 is a Shakespearean Sonnet in format: 14 lines consisting of 3 quatrains (4-line stanzas) and a couplet (2-line stanza)–though not untypically with the logic of a Petrarchan Sonnet’s organization of an octet (8 lines) and a sestet (six lines)–with rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg, written in iambic pentameter (each line consisting of 5 poetic “feet”–pentameter–of two syllables, unstressed and stressed —iamb).
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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, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.
The general nostalgic tone of most of the poem is established in the first four lines as the narrator outlines the universal loss that accompanies aging, time’s passing. When, in moments of reverie (sessions of sweet silent thought–the s’s suggesting a quiet musicality of thought), the speaker recalls memories of what once was (things past), he sighs at the failed attempts (lack) to achieve (sought) many of his desires, the reliving in memory (with old wails new) causing him to lament (wail)the precious (dear) time he wasted on failure. The choice of words here (silent, past, sigh, lack, woes, wail, waste) emphasizes the meaning of the famous line, remembrance of things past, the universal sorrow of loss, of what can never be regained.
So deep is his sorrow that he weeps (drown an eye), though unaccustomed to do so (unused to flow): for precious friends who have died (though life is transient–things past–death is eternal–dateless); for the long past (cancell’d) woe endured in love; and for the visual loss (expense) of many sights no longer seen (vanish’d), with, again the negative choice of words to emphasize the depth of his sadness: drown, hid, death’s, dateless, night, weep, cancell’d, woe, moan, expense, vanish’d).
Further he can even grieve at his lost (forgotten) grievances; and with a heavy, woeful heart relate again (tell o’er) the sad account of already endured (fore–bemoaned) pain (moan), so that, again, though life is transient, pain, as relived through memory, is not: Which I new pay as if not paid before.
Then, abruptly, as if with sudden remembrance of something present,
But
if while deep in thought, his consciousness (I think) turns to his dear friend , restorative love intervenes and thus sorrows end. A heart-felt tribute to his friend’s ability, by his very being, to compensate for loss. Love as healing power.
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(Note: You can view most poems on the website, Poetry Foundation.)
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