Sonnet 30 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 30:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end


William Shakespeare （26 April 1564– 23 April 1616）was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.Shakespeare constructed Sonnet 29 in honor of his friend and possibly his lover, the Earl of Southampton (Shakespeare’s savior). He continues this theme in Sonnet 30.

This poem is about Shakespeare when he sits alone in silence and remember the past, how he gets depressed about all the things he does not have that he once strived for, and he sorrowfully remembers all the valuable time he have wasted in his life. He expresses how he cries for his dear friends who are dead though he is not used to crying, and he weep of the loss of many things he will never see again. He grieve about grievances he had let go of and sadly recount each woe that he had already cried about in the past and feels the pain all over again, as though he had not suffered over those things. But if he think about his dear friend, all his losses are compensated for and his sorrow ends.