In the quiet privacy of his own mind, the speaker summons memories and immediately regrets the desires never fulfilled and the time he’s wasted. Sighs give way to tears—eyes unused to crying—as he thinks of precious friends now dead in death’s dateless night, loves long cancelled, and ordinary sights he’ll never see again. He tallies up a sad account of previous griefs, paying the emotional cost all over again. The mood darkens with each remembered sorrow, and the accumulation feels almost self-tormenting, a trance of mourning where each loss adds to the last, trapping him in a cycle of grief. But then, when his thoughts turn to a particular dear friend, the whole balance shifts. All losses are restored, all sorrows end. The heavy weight of the first twelve lines lifts in a single, gentle couplet—a reminder that one living bond can redeem every old heartache.
Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought — Summary
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.