Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey On The Way Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey On The Way

Rating: 3.0


How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that case and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!"
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
For that same groan doth put this in my mind:
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Elizabeth Marfo 01 December 2017

i like the story about sonnet it cool

1 0 Reply
Fabrizio Frosini 07 November 2015

This and the following sonnet deal with the heaviness of separation, caused by a journey which the poet has to make. He travels on horseback, as the condition of the roads, heavily rutted and often flooded, made travel in carriages impracticable, other than in towns. Shakespeare refers to the horse in this poem as if it were his own. But in any case he is not much concerned to speed on his journey, since it only seems to lead him onward into sorrow. Despite the melancholy of the poem, it is possible to find humour in the cleverness and wit in the description of the horse sharing the rider's unwillingness to travel. One could even see it as one of the 'sugared sonnets' which amusingly depict the boundless love the poet has for his friend and which show how that love enters into every aspect of his existence, including the most mundane and tedious, as this one of going on a journey.

22 0 Reply
Brian Jani 26 April 2014

Awesome I like this poem, check mine out

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