1. Oh how thy worth with manners may I sing,

2. When thou art all the better part of me?

3. What can mine own praise to mine own self bring;

4. And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee,

5. Even for this, let us divided live,

6. And our dear love lose name of single one,

7. That by this separation I may give:

8. That due to thee which thou deservest alone:

9. O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,

10. Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave

11. To entertain the time with thoughts of love,

12. Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.

13. And that thou teachest how to make one twain,

14. By praising him here who doth hence remain.

He Who Doth Remain

Dedication: To Henry

Praising Henry’s worthy for being a part of Oxford and expressing to Henry that hope remains for Henry’s succession.

1^st Quatrain: (1-4)

Extolling Henry’s great value as heir to the throne and reflecting on Henry’s being in essence a part of him .

2^nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Oxford explaining to Henry it is better for their cause that they each live separately. Oxford then speaks of Elizabeth as then able to give up her notion of being without an heir. And finally that this separation from Oxford will provide that which is Henry is due to him the thrown and which he deserves to have to himself.

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

Telling Henry that this absence from him will only be bearable by thinking of thoughts of love and the thoughts of his inheriting the throne.

couplet (13-14),

Finally suggesting that this strategy will ultimately allow and teach Elizabeth how to make herself into more than herself by virtue of Henry who is the one who “doth hence remain”.

Commentary:

Returning again to addressing Henry with a poem to speak of his true worth. This is the first of a trio of sonnets addressed to Henry.

While the general nature of the paradox of this sonnet appears to be generally understood, the specific nature of the youth being the one to remain is completely lost in a context without the mother/son relationship and the succession referred to.

The third person reference to him that remains in couplet revealing the importance and the larger role of this other figure that represents Henry. While line 6, “Our dear love”, reveals that the subject and the poet share a connection to a third person that each have a reason for affection for belies the relationship of Oxford as lover/husband and Henry as son.

The evidence of line six suggest that Henry would loose the relationship of himself to Oxford which again ties back to the offer’s of anonymity earlier provided. See 136 and 135.

Vendler comments that line 9 turns to addressing Absence itself, but for me, the usefulness of her analysis begins and ends there as she loses sight of the importance of why the subject of the poem remains in the couplet. Obviously not understanding the significance of one who is left over after the departure of the other.