In this sonnet, the speaker wonders how to properly celebrate his beloved’s worth when they are so deeply united that praising the other feels like praising himself. He proposes a strange solution: they should live apart, so that through separation he can offer the tribute that belongs solely to his beloved, not to himself. Absence, he admits, would be a torment, but its “sour leisure” grants a bittersweet chance to fill empty hours with thoughts of love. These thoughts sweetly deceive time, softening the pain. The final couplet reveals absence’s deeper lesson—it teaches how to make one person into two, allowing the speaker to praise the one who remains elsewhere. The mood is intimate and tender, full of longing yet lifted by a quiet, clever playfulness with ideas of union and division. It’s a love poem that finds comfort in separation, turning loneliness into a space for devotion.
Sonnet 39: O! how thy worth with manners may I sing — Summary
O! how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me? What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? And what is't but mine own when I praise thee? Even for this, let us divided live, And our dear love lose name of single one, That by this separation I may give That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone. O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove, Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave, To entertain the time with thoughts of love, Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive, And that thou teachest how to make one twain, By praising him here who doth hence remain.