English Wordplay ~ Listen and Enjoy

Sonnet 34

A. L. Rowse in his Shakespeare's Sonnets is of the opinion that: With this we enter upon the serious story of the Sonnets, their complexity of feeling, the depths of feeling they plumb. For what has happened is that the young man, who is so reluctant to marry has taken, or been captured by, Shakespeare's mistress - the dark woman of the later sonnets.

Kate O'Brien borrowed the prase Without My Cloak for an excelllent novel.

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross. 
  Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
  And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

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