William Shakespeare. 1564–1616

Sonnet XXX.

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought”


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 times’ waste:  
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,    5
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   10
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.