The speaker burns with jealousy and self-pity. He’s in love with a woman whose beautiful eyes scatter kindness on every “vulgar spirit” around him, yet she gives him not a single glance. To him, this is a cruel injustice—his deeper feeling and insight go completely unrewarded. He then pictures a humble plowman who stares happily at a wandering star, content with its simple light, never learning the constellations that lie beyond his sight. The speaker envies that ignorance. He wishes he could be as blind as those ordinary admirers, because his own skill and sensitivity only make him miserable. The final couplet delivers a bitter paradox: the heavens themselves are least kind to those who know them best. The whole sonnet creates a mood of frustrated and slightly self-dramatizing anguish—a smart, hurt man resenting the fact that love doesn’t reward understanding.
Sonnet XLIII: Why Should Your Fair Eyes — Summary
Why should your fair eyes with such sovereign grace Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit, Whilst I in darkness, in the self-same place, Get not one glance to recompense my merit? So doth the plowman gaze the wand'ring star, And only rest contented with the light, That never learn'd what constellations are Beyond the bent of his unknowing sight. O why should Beauty, custom to obey, To their gross sense apply herself so ill? Would God I were as ignorant as they, When I am made unhappy by my skill, Only compell'd on this poor good to boast: Heav'ns are not kind to them that know them most.