least content with his own talents which he once pre-
sumably enjoyed.
It seems as though there is nothing that can remove
the speaker from this black pit of despair. In fact, the
third quatrain reminds the reader again that these
thoughts of the speaker’s own inadequacies make him
almost self-despising. But then, suddenly, things
change. The speaker uses the word haply (l. 10) to
indicate that this change is “by chance.” Also, however,
haply puns on happily, what this chance refl ection
makes him feel. The speaker is able to change this
depressed “state,” or mood, by thinking of “thee,” who
is clearly identifi ed as the speaker’s beloved. This per-
son can change the speaker’s mood amazingly and
completely.
The rest of the quatrain demonstrates this newfound
happiness by focusing on one image that signifi es the
speaker’s new state: a lark singing at the gate of heaven,
the place that was previously deaf to the speaker’s cries.
The speaker probably chooses the lark to indicate his
extreme happiness and change of mood because of the
lark’s habit of fl ying straight up in the air in the early
morning singing all the time. The direction the lark
fl ies—up—is opposite the direction in which the
speaker was living—down. This word can refer to
depression—or to the direction of human life “down”
on the “sullen” earth. Since the speaker was hardly in
the mood to sing earlier in the sonnet, the image of the
small bird pouring out its song becomes a blissful
alternative to the speaker’s unhappy state.
The speaker’s depression calls to mind the Christian
sin of despair. Given all that he laments in life, we might
consider that he is very close to experiencing this sin,
which can be viewed by the depressed person as a feel-
ing that he is being denied the love of God. Thus, while
a despairing soul might be “cured” of despair through
feeling and acknowledging the love of God, for the
speaker, the beloved’s love replaces that of God. This
substitution can be regarded as blasphemous on one
level, but also as platonic in that the beloved becomes
the means by which the speaker is directed toward a
personal acknowledgment of God’s love. Additionally,
the “disappearance” of the bird in the air as it is viewed
could make one believe that the lark has fl own up to
heaven. The beauty of its song thus surely indicates that
it must be singing hymns “at heaven’s gate” (l. 12),
hymns God would certainly want to hear, even if God
was deaf to the cries of the speaker.
The fi nal COUPLET reinforces the speaker’s reliance
on the beloved to provide happiness. While he had
previously wished to trade everything in his life, from
his abilities to his looks, with any number of persons,
he now acknowledges that the mere remembrance, the
thought, of this beloved brings such a wealth of happi-
ness that he now would scorn to change his particular
status in life with anyone, even a king.
See also SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM; SHAKESPEARE’S SON-
NETS (OVERVIEW).
Theodora A. JankowskiShakespeare’s sonnets: Sonnet 30 (“When to
the sessions of sweet silent thought”) WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE (1599) In this SONNET, WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE uses metaphors connected to the law
courts to help describe the speaker’s feelings about his
beloved, recalling both guilt and punishment. The son-
net also considers how time can affect friendship and
love. Possibly the slowness with which English court
cases preceded in the past suggested this combination
of images to the poet. The speaker begins by talking
about the periods—using the term that refers to the
sittings of law courts, “sessions”—when he pleasantly
muses upon the past and the changes that have
occurred in his life. He uses the word summon (l. 2)—
which refers to the legal document that calls a person
to appear at a court proceeding—to describe how the
beloved calls up past memories. Pondering these mem-
ories, the speaker mourns the loss of things that he
tried to obtain but did not, and he laments again all the
precious time wasted in the past.
The second quatrain indicates that, even though these
periods of reminiscence are sweet, they are also sad
because of the thoughts they call up. A good way to
describe these memories would be “bittersweet,” because
they recall both good and bad moments. They cause the
speaker, who sees himself as an unemotional type, to
“drown” eyes that are not used to weeping in a fl ood of
tears. What specifi cally causes these tears are memories
of precious friends now hidden in the perpetual darkSHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS: SONNET 30 369