Sonnet 29 Isolation Quotes

The speaker comes right out and says that he's a social outcast (although, we're never really sure why that is). Just in case we didn't get how lonely he feels, he says that nobody feels any sympathy for his situation, describing himself as "I all alone."

In the first two lines, we learned how the speaker feels like a social leper. By the third line, he's all "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." In other words, he also feels isolated from God. His cries (a.k.a. prayers) go unanswered, and he's pretty bitter about it. And, he all but accuses God of being annoyed (or, "trouble[d]") with him. Plus, the fact that the speaker can't even come out and say God's name (he uses the word "heav'n") reinforces the idea that he is spiritually distanced from God.

Hmm. This poem is all about the speaker's introspection. Translation: He's consumed with himself. Is that why he's "all alone" and isolated?

This is where our speaker claims that he doesn't have any friends. We're starting to understand why he feels so lonely.

When we hear that the speaker doesn't find any joy or pleasure in the things/people he used to enjoy the most, we wonder just how much of the speaker's isolation from the world is self-imposed. In other words, is he really an outcast, or is he just feeling sorry for himself?

Wait a minute, folks! It turns out that our speaker does have someone special in his life: "thee." Not only that, but just thinking about "thee" is enough to put him in a better mood and make him feel like a bird that rises up and "sings hymns at heaven's gate." That's a huge step. Earlier in the sonnet, our speaker said "heav'n" was ignoring his cries and prayers (3). But now, it seems like heaven might be listening to our guy. Does this mean he no longer feels isolated from God?

So, this "thee" person may not be physically present in our speaker's life, but, despite that, our guy no longer feels alone when he thinks about the memory of the person's "sweet love."