Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.
Sonnet 27 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet typically consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet. This poem follows the usual rhyme scheme of its type, abab cdcd efef gg. Sonnet 27 is largely written in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre in which a line is constructed with five pairs of unstressed/stressed syllables. Lines eleven and twelve depart from this pattern, as both contain an eleventh syllable, known as a feminine ending.
Iambic pentameter of line thirteen from Sonnet 27
Stress
x
/
x
/
x
/
x
/
x
/
Syllable
Lo,
thus,
by
day
my
limbs,
by
night
my
mind,
Analysis
Sonnet 27 is part of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards another Man. Sonnet 27, when written using modern spelling, is Shakespeare's only pangrammic sonnet. It forms a diptych with Sonnet 28 which continues it.
For another of Shakespeare's sonnets dealing with night, sleep and dreams see Sonnet 43.
References
Alden, Raymond (1916). The Sonnets of Shakespeare, with Variorum Reading and Commentary. Houghton-Mifflin, Boston.
Baldwin, T. W. (1950). On the Literary Genetics of Shakspeare's Sonnets. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Booth, Stephen (1977). Shakespeare's Sonnets. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Works related to Sonnet 27 (Shakespeare) at Wikisource
