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A Sonnet's Longing Ritual
This sonnet presents a speaker who frames desire as constrained by his lack of traditional masculine roles—knight or shepherd—yet remains devoted. He imagines passion armoring him and compares his beloved to Hybla’s sweetest roses. Deprived of martial or rustic agency, he resolves to pursue affection through nocturnal ritual: tasting dew and employing spells beneath the moon. The form concentrates longing into a single, elegiac declaration of yearning and resourcefulness.
Read Complete AnalysesHad I a man's fair form, then might my sighs Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell, Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well Would passion arm me for the enterprise: But ah! I am no knight whose foeman dies; No cuirass glistens on my bosom's swell; I am no happy shepherd of the dell Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes. Yet must I dote upon thee, -call thee sweet, Sweeter by far than Hybla's honied roses When steeped in dew rich to intoxication. Ah! I will taste that dew, for me 'tis meet, And when the moon her pallid face discloses, I'll gather some by spells, and incantation.
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