52
So am I as the rich whose blesséd key
Can bring him to his sweet up-lockéd treasure,
The which he will not ev’ry hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since seldom coming in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placéd are,
Or captain Jewels in the carconet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special bless’d,
By new unfolding his imprison’d pride.
Blesséd are you whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had to triumph, being lack’d to hope.
The meter emphasizes the 4-4-4-2 structure that underlies the four scenes in Sonnet 52: each section begins with a trochee, each followed by an iamb except the first quatrain, which has two trochees before the iamb: “SO am I as the RICH.” Along with the feminine endings in lines 2 and 4, these give the sonnet a particularly flowing feel. The only other irregularities are the pyrrhic-spondee in the second and third feet of line 4 (For BLUNTing the FINE POINT), and the final spondee of line 6, which serves to slow down “the LONG YEAR SET.” [Note: Line 14 is regular due to the fluidity that allows being to be pronounced as one syllable in the first foot and as two syllables later in the line.]
53
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you,
On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new.
Speak of the spring and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blesséd shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you for constant heart.
The first two lines of Sonnet 53 are the easiest to read naturally. They are also the most irregular: “WHAT is your SUBstance, WHEREfore ARE you MADE, / that MILlions of STRANGE SHADows ON you TEND?” The rest of the lines are regular except for the initial trochee in line 9 (“SPEAK of the SPRING”). The punctuation of this sonnet indicates how to scan the lines, not how to read the grammar. It’s interesting how following that scansion leads to a gentle rhythm quite at odds with the ungainly syntax, filled with Shakespeare’s reordered clauses. Perhaps the mismatch has something to do with the sentiment of the sonnet and its distance from the history of the two men’s relationship.
54
Oh how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give,
The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor, which doth in it live.
The Canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfuméd tincture of the Roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer’s breath their maskéd buds discloses.
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo’d, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so,
Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odors made.
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.
The meter of this sonnet is uncomplicated, with feminine endings in lines 6 and 8 and only three feet with trochees: the initial feet of lines 6 and 7 and the third foot of line 13 (“And SO of YOU BEAUteous and LOVEly YOUTH.”) This matches the uncomplicated surface of the sonnet. The darker undertones are not emphasized by the meter. [Note: Line 6 is subtle. The first two words in As the perfuméd tincture” have almost equal stress, but they are neither as weak as a pyrrhic nor as strong as a spondee. I have called them a trochee, but this is an excellent example of the limitations of labels in metrical analysis. This first foot occupies a space somewhere among all four variants—the iamb, trochee, pyrrhic and spondee. What we call it matters much less than how we hear it in relation to the entire line.]
55
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of Princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Then unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall Statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So ’til the judgment that your self arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
The meter of Sonnet 55 is stolid, perhaps a deliberate consonance with monuments, princes, the god of war, and immortality. I read all iambs except for the initial trochee of line 11, adding to the grandiloquent tone of the poem and making it somewhat unyielding. I find that rhythm makes W. seem unyielding, too.
56
Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but today by feeding is allayed,
Tomorrow sharp’ned in his former might.
So love be thou, although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even ’til they wink with fullness,
Tomorrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of Love, with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad Int’rim like the Ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,
Come daily to the banks, that when they see
Return of love, more blest may be the view.
As call it Winter, which being full of care,
Makes Summer’s welcome, thrice more wish’d, more rare.
In this sonnet, Shakespeare returns to a conversational tone, an interesting device considering that the addressee is the Spirit of Love. There is an unusual frequency of lines that run on to the next without a pause (lines 1-2, 5-6, 7-8, 11-12), as well as internal punctuation (ten lines). Other unusual features are the trochee in the next-to-last foot of line 1 and the repeated irregular meter of lines 6 and 8 (a trochee in the middle of the line and a feminine ending). All this is accomplished without appreciable awkwardness in phrasing, loss of iambic rhythm, or disruption of perception of the rhyme (an all-too-common problem with lines that do not end with pauses). The sonnet flows effortlessly from the opening term of address to the concluding couplet’s rare welcome of summer’s pleasures. [Note: In line 8, spirit is pronounced as one syllable.]
57
Being your slave what should I do but tend
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do ’til you require.
Nor dare I chide the world without end hour,
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealious thought,
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave stay and think of naught
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love, that in your Will,
(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.
One of the remarkable things about this sonnet is how natural the language sounds. The only irregularities in the iambic pentameter are the initial trochee of line 1 and the spondees at the end of line 5 (with OUT END HOUR) and the middle of line 11 (But LIKE a SAD SLAVE STAY). The lines sound so much like normal speech that the rhymes come almost as a surprise. The parenthetical phrases in lines 6 and 14 and the end-line punctuation subtly affect the scansion, guiding the reader to just the proper tone, maintaining the balance between text and sub-text.
58
That God forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand th’ account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.
Oh let me suffer (being at your beck)
Th’ imprison’d absence of your liberty,
And patience tame, to sufferance bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong,
That you your self may privilege your time
To what you will, to you it doth belong,
Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.
The power of this sonnet lies in its rhythms, undulating beneath the iambic pentameter of the verse. Note the richness of the phrasing with six lines containing internal punctuation. All the midline breaks occur in the usual positions, after the fourth or fifth syllable, but there is such a variety of syllable lengths that the meter doesn’t seem monotonous. The few departures from iambs emphasize important phrases: the feminine endings of lines 2 and 4 (PLEAsure…LEIsure), the initial trochee of line 4 (BEing your VASsal), and the spondees of lines 9 (is SO STRONG) and 12 (of SELF DOing). Line 4 is particularly noteworthy. The initial trochee-iamb combined with the midline pause after the fifth syllable and the feminine ending effectively reverse the iambic flow: “BEing your VASsal | BOUND to STAY your LEIsure.” (DUM-te-te-DUM-te-DUM-te-DUM-te-DUM-te.) This changes the normally weak feminine line into the strongest one in the poem.
59
If there be nothing new, but that which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil’d,
Which laboring for invention bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child?
Oh that recórd could with a backward look,
Even of five hundreth courses of the Sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done,
That I might see what the old world could say,
To this composéd wonder of your frame,
Whether we are mended, or where better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
Oh sure I am the wits of former days,
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
The meter of Sonnet 59 is no less complicated than its language. It reads smoothly, but only with the benefit of dropped vowels and irregular stresses. Trusting our ears, we must read laboring (line 3) as two syllables (lab-ring), record (line 5) with an accent on the second syllable and Even (line 6) as one syllable (Ev’n, a pronunciation frequently used, and not far from modern speech). Line 11 is more complicated. A purist would read Whether as one syllable (Whe’er) to give the line ten syllables. An alternative is to pronounce it normally, with two syllables, giving the first foot a very irregular three syllables (the first two unstressed). I don’t have strong feelings about this other than to say that the sound of the line isn’t very different either way. Two unstressed syllables sound a lot like one when followed by a stressed syllable. I don’t like to get too fussy about these issues when the sound is so similar. The meter is mostly regular, with a few variations in the second and third quatrains. Lines 6 and 7 both start with trochee-iambs: “EV’N of five HUNdreth” and “SHOW me your IMage,” demanding the evidence in no uncertain terms. Lines 9 and 11 also have a repeated pattern, the doubled-up iamb we’ve seen before created by a pyrrhic-spondee: “what the OLD WORLD could SAY” and “WE are MENded or WHERE BETter THEY.” The stress is on what the old world had to say.
60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,
And time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
Matching the richness of language in this sonnet is the richness of meter. The first two lines start with trochee-iambs and are answered directly by two regular lines. Two rapid iambs are then squeezed into Nativity in line 5, followed by a trochee-iamb and then two more lines with initial trochee-iamb. I read the first two feet in line 9 as spondees whose heavy accents arrest the sonnet at this line as time transfixes the flush of youth. (“TIME DOTH TRANSFIX the FLOUrish SET on YOUTH.”) A regular line is followed by an initial trochee-iamb, echoed in the final line, a lonely emphasis on praise: “PRAIsing thy WORTH.”
61
Is it thy will thy Image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy Jealousy?
O no, thy love, though much, is not so great,
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.
The rhythm of Sonnet 61 varies as it progresses. The playfulness is heightened by the feminine endings in lines 1 and 3, the mock questions (“Is it thy will…Is it thy spirit…?) echoing each other after the forceful trochee-iamb opening the first line. When W. comes to the true answer in line 9, the meter changes to three successive lines with spondees, each time emphasizing the word love: “OH NO, THY LOVE”; “It IS MY LOVE”; “Mine OWN TRUE LOVE.” The meter makes no big deal of jealousy, suspicion or fear.
62
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Me thinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account,
And for my self mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me my self indeed,
Beated and chopp’d with tann’d antiquity,
Mine own self love quite contrary I read
Self, so self loving were iniquity,
’Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
The organization of this sonnet as octet-sestet is reinforced by the meter. After an initial trochee-iamb in line 1, the rest of the first eight lines are all in regular iambic pentameter; the second line of each of the next three pairs starts with a trochee-iamb. The difference in rhythm is palpable.
63
Against my love shall be as I am now
With time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’er-worn,
When hours have drain’d his blood and fill’d his brow
With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
Hath travail’d on to Age’s steepy night,
And all those beauties whereof now he’s King
Are vanishing, or vanish’d out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his Spring.
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding Age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
And they shall live, and he in them still green.
There are only two irregular lines in Sonnet 63. Line 2 has a trochee-iamb in the next-to-last foot (CRUSH’D and o’er WORN) and line 8 begins with a trochee-iamb (STEAling aWAY the TREAsure). Despite this regularity of meter, the rhythm of the sonnet is varied through different syllable length, placement of pauses, lines that do not end with pauses and multi-syllable words. The sonnet reads easily with a conversational cadence that undercuts the Ovidian style.
64
When I have seen by time’s fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down rased,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.
When I have seen the hungry Ocean gain
Advantage on the Kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state it self confounded, to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.
The meter of Sonnet 64 has lots of variety. There are spondees in the fourth foot of line 1 (“by TIME’S FELL HAND deFACED”) and the second foot of line 2 (“The RICH PROUD COST”). Line 7 is very irregular, with a pyrrhic-spondee followed by a trochee: (“And the FIRM SOIL WIN of the WAT’ry MAIN”). Line 11 starts with a trochee-iamb and line 14 has one in the middle (“But WEEP to HAVE, THAT which it FEARS to LOSE.”). All of this helps propel the verse through to the end without letting the grand style overshadow the gentle sentiment of the couplet.
65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’er-sways 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 batt’ring 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 o’er beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
Aside from the feminine endings in lines 2 and 4, there are only two irregular lines in Sonnet 65. The rhythm keeps from sounding dull due to varied placement of the midline break and the concentration of spondees in lines 10 and 11, focusing attention on the most interesting lines: “Shall TIMES BEST JEwel from TIMES CHEST lie HID? / Or WHAT STRONG HAND can HOLD his SWIFT FOOT BACK?
66
Tir’d with all these for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy Nothing trimm’d in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honor shamefully misplac’d,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,
And strength by limping sway disabléd,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And Folly (Doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple-Truth miscall’d Simplicity,
And captive-good attending Captain ill.
Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that to die, I leave my love alone.
The simple form of this sonnet requires a simple meter. It starts with an emphatic trochee-iamb in line 1, followed by 11 lines of regular iambic pentameter making up the list of the world’s ills. The last two lines are also emphasized with initial trochee-iambs: “TIR’D with all THESE” and “SAVE that to DIE.”
67
Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace itself with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeing of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,
Roses of shadow, since his Rose is true?
Why should he live, now nature bankrout is,
Beggar’d of blood to blush through lively veins,
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And prov’d of many, lives upon his gains?
O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,
In days long since, before these last so bad.
Double sonnet to be read with Sonnet 68.
68
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty liv’d and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchers, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head,
’Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay.
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, it self and true,
Making no summer of another’s green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
There are only four initial trochee-iambs (lines 8 and 10 in Sonnet 67 and 11 and 12 in Sonnet 68) and one spondee in the middle of line 8 in Sonnet 68 (“Ere BEAUty’s DEAD FLEECE MADE anOTHer GAY.”) With just these few variations from iambic pentameter, these sonnets read naturally. The rhymes seem expected, the verse hardly noticeable.
69
Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,
Utt’ring bare truth, even so as foes Commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown’d,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds,
Then, churls, their thoughts, (although their eyes were kind)
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds.
But why thy odor matcheth not thy show,
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
There are four feet with spondees in this sonnet. They all emphasize important phrases. In line 1 we have pyrrhic spondee: “The PARTS of THEE that the WORLD’S EYE doth VIEW.” Line 4 starts with a trochee-iamb, saving the spondee for the middle of the line: “UTtring bare TRUTH EV’N SO as FOES comMEND. Line 12 follows the spondee with a trochee, creating four stressed syllables in a row (in this line, the last syllable of flower is not pronounced: “flow’r”) and then another spondee “To THY FAIR FLOW’R ADD the RANK SMELL of WEEDS.” No hiding from that line.
70
That thou art blam’d shall not be thy defect,
For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair,
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A Crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve,
Thy worth the greater being woo’d of time,
For Canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present’st a pure unstainéd prime.
Thou hast pass’d by the ambush of young days,
Either not assail’d, or victor being charg’d,
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlarg’d.
If some suspect of ill mask’d not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
Most of the variation in this sonnet is provided by multi-syllable words (ornament, unstainèd, evermore) and internal punctuation. A few trochees provide the rest with notable emphases. Line 5 has “So THOU be GOOD SLANder doth BUT apPROVE.” Line 9: “THOU hast pass’s BY the AMbush OF young DAYS.” And finally, line 14: “Then THOU aLONE KINGdoms of HEARTS shoulds’t OWE.”
71
No Longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vildest worms to dwell.
Nay if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
The meter of this sonnet is as subtle as its tone. The only irregular lines are line 12, with the midline trohcee: “EV’N with my LIFE,” and line 13 with a pyrrhic-spondee: “Lest the WISE WORLD.” In both cases, the emphases are strong. But throughout this sonnet are a number of feet that can be treated as iambs but whose stresses are ambiguous. For example, “From this vile world” (line 4), “I love you so” (line 6), and “in your sweet thoughts” (line 7) are all intermediate, the italicized feet being somewhere between iambs and spondees. Even the other regular lines have more variety of stress than usual. This gives the sonnet enough fluidity to keep the inserted parenthetical feet and reversed word order (compounded am) in lines 9 and 10 from sounding clumsy. The sonnet reads quickly with just a few pauses for breaths from line 1 to 14. There’s hardly time to register the odd request of the couplet.
72
O lest the world should task you to recite,
What merit liv’d in me that you should love,
After my death (dear love) forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceaséd I,
Then niggard truth would willingly impart.
O lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.
For I am sham’d by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
There are two irregular lines in this sonnet. Line 3 starts with a trochee-iamb and line 6 has a spondee followed by an iamb at the end. I think. To be honest, I find the rhythm of line 6 difficult. I can’t decide how to read it from one day to the next, or even one minute to the next. At times, it seems to demand to be read almost like prose, breaking completely out of the iambic pentameter to stand on its own, as irregular as it wants to be: “To do MORE for ME than mine OWN deSERT” (a pyrrhic followed by two trochees). Is this line meant to be difficult? Is it the embodiment of niggardly truth?
73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after Sunset fadeth in the West,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death bed, whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Double sonnet to be read with Sonnet 74.
74
But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee,
The earth can have but earth, which is his due,
My spirit is thine the better part of me.
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,
Too base of thee to be rememberéd.
The worth of that, is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.
Line 2 of Sonnet 73 does not end with a pause and the sonnet otherwise has only two irregular lines. Line 11 has a pyrrhic-spondee “As the DEATH BED” and line 13 starts with a trochee-iamb “THIS thou perCEIV’ST.” Sonnet 74 has 14 lines of regular iambic pentameter. Yet the rhythms of these sonnets are as beautiful as the imagery, with shifting midline breaks, changing syllable length and multi-syllable words scattered throughout. It’s obvious that these are poems, written in rhymed verse, but they sound so natural, I sometimes find it hard to believe that they are written with so little variation from the strict constraints of the English sonnet form.
75
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet season’d showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife,
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure,
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starvéd for a look,
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
There are plenty of irregular lines in Sonnet 75, but they sound very similar to the regular ones. They read naturally, even line 1, with its unusual two trochees in a row: “SO are YOU to my THOUGHTS.” The most dramatic line is line 3, which ends in a spondee: “And FOR the PEACE of YOU i HOLD SUCH STRIFE.” (The other irregular lines are lines 6 and 13, which start with trochees.) Lines 6 and 8 have feminine endings, adding to the comic tone, as do all the gerunds, that continue the sense of flow (possessing, pursuing, gluttoning).