Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return in Happy Plight
Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return in Happy Plight - meaning Summary
Tortured by Day and Night
The speaker describes sleepless anguish caused by a beloved’s absence: neither day nor night offers relief. Day brings physical toil and nightly complaint, while night should comfort but only prolongs grief. The poet pretends—flattering day and personifying night—that the beloved enhances both, yet these consolations are hollow. Time itself seems to conspire, lengthening sorrow rather than easing it, leaving the speaker trapped between opposing, united torments.
Read Complete AnalysesHow can I then return in happy plight That am debarred the benefit of rest? When day’s oppression is not eased by night, But day by night, and night by day oppressed? And each, though enemies to either’s reign, Do in consent shake hands to torture me, The one by toil, the other to complain How far I toil, still farther off from thee. I tell the day, to please him, thou art bright And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven; So flatter I the swart-complexioned night, When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even. But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.
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