The speaker is haunted by his lover’s beauty as if by a malevolent ghost. This “evil spirit” gives him not a moment’s rest, luring him toward every kind of ill and forcing him to dwell on despair. Even when he tries to fight back, the torment redoubles. The mood is one of suffocating obsession: sleep brings no escape, and waking thoughts drag him toward tears and death. The tight sonnet form adds to the feeling of being trapped, each line pressing forward like the speaker’s own racing thoughts. There’s no escape from the voice that speaks inside him, day and night. The final line captures the twisted core of the experience—calling the beloved a “good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil” shows how love has become indistinguishable from pain, a beautiful cruelty that holds him fast. It’s a dark, claustrophobic sonnet that turns romantic longing into a personal hell.
Sonnet XX: An Evil Spirit — Summary
An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest; In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake, And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments then it me doth take, And tortures me in most extremity; Before my face it lays down my despairs, And hastes me on unto a sudden death, Now tempting me to drown myself in tears, And then in sighing to give up my breath. Thus am I still provok'd to every evil By this good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.