Shakespeare's Sonnet 64

I am currently in a class on Lyric Poetry that I thought was going to be very boring and difficult seeing that poetry and I have a bad history... But it's not and I actually like the class so far. This is probably because the professor (Dr. Schwartz) is so awesome at reading and explaining poetry and because lyric poetry has a lot to do with music, seeing that music is the main root of lyric poetry and I like music, therefore lyric poetry is actually interesting. (Like my run on sentence?)

Today in class we went over Sonnet 64 by William Shakespeare. It is unlike many of Shakespeare's sonnets because it deals less with the idea of immortality through procreation or the poems themselves, and deals more with death and how much it sucks (to put it bluntly).

So I thought you might like to read it.

Sonnet 64
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such an interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate:
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

The main idea of the poem, that we discussed in class, is that the speaker feels as though being with their love is just as bad as if the person had already died, since the speaker knows their love will die just as towers, brass, the shore and soil do. As Dr. Shwartz was reading the poem I felt the feeling in the poem, if that makes sense. And as we discussed it and I understood this one possible meaning, I understood why I was moved. That was a great moment, one of those that makes going to college worth it. I know I have learned something and understand the world around me better because of it.

Go Shakespeare and Dr. Schwartz.