Sonnet 75

The speaker of this poem seems to have a pretty negative view of love and life. You could also say that he has a sort of negative attitude towards the reader, because he likes springing nasty surprises on him (or her).

Just check out the first line: "So are you to my thoughts as food to life." Expressions of love don't get much prettier than that, do they? And then just listen to him wax lyrical about those "sweet seasoned show'rs" falling on "the ground." Aww. But then we get a big surprise in line 3, when all of a sudden the mood changes and we're hearing about the speaker being tormented by internal "strife" as he tries to get "peace of you."

Okay, so this might still sound pretty romantic—you know, the whole tortured soul of a poet thing. But then what about all that nasty miser imagery that follows, not to mention the glutton imagery after line 9, when things start to get downright disgusting? Plus, it turns out that the "you" (the person the poem is addressed to) might not even be all that into the speaker. Why else would things have to "be took" (line 12) from you?

All in all, we'd say that the speaker sounds like a pretty angry and frustrated guy. That said, we can still give him credit for having the gumption to call it like he sees it.