The speaker admits his love has grown stronger, even though he now hides it more. He isn’t loving less; he’s just stopped advertising his feelings as loudly as before. When love was new, like spring, he celebrated it constantly with songs and poems. He compares himself to the nightingale that sings beautifully in early summer, then falls silent as the season deepens. The summer itself hasn’t become less lovely, but now there’s so much wild music everywhere that familiar pleasures risk becoming ordinary. If all the trees are full of song, one more voice might simply dull the listener’s ear. So, like the nightingale, he sometimes chooses silence — not from coldness, but because he doesn’t want his constant melody to wear out its welcome. The mood is gentle, thoughtful, and a little wistful: a mature love that feels secure enough to rest in quiet presence rather than endless proclamation.
Sonnet 102: My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming — Summary
My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear; That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming, The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, And stops her pipe in growth of riper days: Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild music burthens every bough, And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue: Because I would not dull you with my song.