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Thy bosome is indeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there raignes Love and all Loves loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious teare
Hath deare religious love stolne from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appeare,
But things remov'd that hidden in there lie,
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gon,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many, now is thine alone.
Their images I lov'd, I view in thee,
And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.
Commentary
Commentary
Address to a young man far away
Address to a young man far away
Changes to the original text: line 10, 'tropheis' changed to 'trophies'
In the first quatrain, the poet observes that all the friends and lovers he has had are not missing, but are rather stored in his beloved's bosom.
In the second quatrain, the poet notes that he has mourned and shed tears for many people, but that, in fact, they all live on in his beloved.
In the third quatrain, the poet pushes the idea further, making his beloved the grave for all his past loves. His love, which was formerly in many pieces, is now all re-assembled in his beloved.
The final couplet formulates the same paradoxical conundrum more succinctly.
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