1. Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
2. And make me travel forth without my cloak,
3. To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
4. Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke.
5. 'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
6. To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
7. For no man well of such a salve can speak,
8. That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:
9. Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
10. Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,
11. The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
12. To him that bears the strong offence's loss.
13. Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
14. And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.
Him That Bears the Cross
Dedication: To Elizabeth
Using the analogy of a promised day without foul weather Oxford questions Elizabeth about why she has deceived him in regard to Henry. And pointing out that it is not enough to try and heal Oxford because the disgrace and his grief still remain. Pointing out, that it is Henry who suffers, nor will her own aguish repay or cure the crime.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Comparing what Elizabeth has done to him to one who has duped a person about the weather.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Telling her that though the storm has ended and he is cured of whatever ailments brought still the greater wound of disgrace still hangs over him and even purported shame at this initial crime can't provide a consolation.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
More clearly telling her that though she expresses contrition it doesn't rectify the situation and restore Henry.
couplet (13-14),
Yet expressing that he does value her guilt and repentance and that he does forgive her.
Commentary:
Oxford asks Elizabeth how she could offer such a promise as Henry and then refuse to provide it using the metaphor of weather.
The contrast of what was promised and what was provided to the poet ties back to the overriding story told. Thus this sonnet like many usually is lost in the seeming meaninglessness of whatever petty complaint the poet is seeming to express at the moment. As part of the grander scheme however which ties into the dedication and the expressed purpose of the sonnets it’s true meaning can now be revealed.
Once again the metaphor of the sun utilized by this sonnet is no accident. In addition the ill expressed toward the subject and scars revealed allude to the much longer duration of the relationship than would have had to the possibility to be realized if this poem were actually to the fair youth as presumed by orthodoxy. In addition the disgrace suffered by the poet should make much better sense as revealed in the paradigm presented. I argue elsewhere that this disgrace was in fact the source of Philip Sidney’s famous remark recorded by Fulke Greville that “Puppies are gotten by Dogs, and Children by men”, which in effect referred to Oxford not siring a real child when that child couldn’t be revealed. I personally find some intrigue in that this poem is one I can only imagine being addressed to Elizabeth and yet contains no romantic language that is usually associated with sonnets addressed to Elizabeth. I also wonder how the orthodoxy can view this as addressed to the youth and still refer to him in the third person in line 12.