Sonnet 45: the Other Two, Slight Air and Purging Fire
Sonnet 45: the Other Two, Slight Air and Purging Fire - form Summary
A Volta Drives the Turn
This poem is a Shakespearean sonnet whose structure shapes its emotional arc. Two elements, air and fire, are imagined as messengers linking speaker and beloved. The poem’s turn (volta) shifts from hopeful reception of their report to renewed sorrow when the speaker sends them back. The sonnet form—octave developing the problem, sestet and closing couplet resolving and then reversing it—heightens the cyclical tension of desire and absence.
Read Complete AnalysesThe other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy; Until life’s composition be recured By those swift messengers returned from thee, Who even but now come back again, assured Of thy fair health, recounting it to me. This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, I send them back again and straight grow sad.
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