Can u guys explain this poem to me...i dont understand it.


The 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, oppress'd with melancholy;
Until life's composition be recured
By those swift messengers return'd 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.


thanks!

Lil, go here:

[www.shakespeares-sonnets.com]


Les

Recured, Will? Must have meant 'recovered' way back when. But how did you pronounce that sad word, meLANchoLEE?

I think he slurred the LAN syllable- mel'ncholy.

pam

I'd say he pronounced it MELanCHOLy as we do, but was content to have an unstressed syllable rhyme with 'thee'. It's the only such rhyme in this sonnet. Could be a blemish, but I'd credit WS with the subtlety of using a rhyme muted as if by a sob appropriate to the immediate meaning.

Ian

It kind of refers to 'the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other' kind of thing. He says his life is made of four: him, his love, and these two sensations: thought and desire. Hes saying that his life would die from melancholy if he didnt have thought and desire; love is not enough.