Sonnet 90

Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,

Now while the world is bent my deeds to crosse,

Joyne with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

And do not drop in for an after losse.

Ah, doe not, when my heart hath scapte this sorrow,

Come in the rereward of a conquerd woe,

Give not a windy night a rainie morrow,

To linger out a purposd over-throw,

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

When other pettie griefes have done their spight,

But in the onset come, so shall I taste

At first the very worst of Fortune's might.

And other straines of woe, which now seeme woe,

Compar'd with losse of thee, will not seeme so.

Commentary

Address to his beloved

Changes to the original text:

This sonnet picks up where the last (Sonnet 89) left off: with the word 'hate'. The sense of the sonnet is clear: if the young man is going to let the poet drop, then he should do so straight away, not string it out. At least that way the other problems assailing the poet will then seem minor in comparison with his loss of the young man's affections.

There is just one metaphor here: 'give not a windy night a rainy morrow'. It is wonderfully commonplace and somehow, despite the sad, resigned tone of the rest of the poem, reassuring. Clearly, the poet is in no mood to launch into extravagant praise, devise cunning conceits, indulge in strange, paradoxical reasoning. So what we are left with is the everyday, and understatement.

At all events, it works very well as poetry.