Saturday, June 20, 2020


Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give:
That due of many now is thine alone.


Sonnet 31                               

Okay, that’s lines nine through twelve, but here’s the whole thing. No sense in looking at just part of a sonnet.

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things remov’d that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give:
That due of many now is thine alone.
            Their images I lov’d I view in thee,
            And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.


There. The sonnets aren’t easy, are they. Best if you take each four lines, and then the last two, separately as separate thoughts. Like this:

Lines 1-4: In you I see all my previous lovers.
Lines 5-8: I’ve cried many tears over these past lovers, and now I see them in you.
Lines 9-12: Again, all my past lovers are in you, and all that I gave them is in you, so that any love I owed them is now owed to you.
Lines 13-14: I see them in you, and you now have all of me, including any love I gave to my previous lovers.

What do you think? Did I get it? I guess I could go look in my sonnet book which explains each sonnet. Except that I’m at work right now and that book is at home. Maybe later.




I was looking for a picture of one of my trophies, since the second line mentions trophies. Then I realized that I don't have any trophies. So here's a pic of my nose tray that's supposed to be used for holding my glasses. I think it looks a little bit like a trophy. The idea with the nose tray is that I will know where I left my glasses if I were to use the nose tray. But no, I still leave my glasses all over the place, and wear my wife out with 'Where'd I put my glasses?' Yes, she hast all of me, including the 'Where'd I put my glasses?' part. I think she would be willing to live without that part.

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