The Lark
We only see this "lark" (a bird) once but it's the most stunning and dominant image in the poem. It helps us to understand the speaker's changing mood and his dramatic spiritual transformation. Ove...
"Heav'n," or Heaven
We sort of covered this in our section on "the lark," but it's important enough to get its own discussion. In the sonnet, our speaker uses the word "heav'n" as a way to avoid saying the name of "Go...
Vision: "Eyes" and "Look[ing]"
Our self-aware speaker has a habit of using literal vision as a metaphor for the way people look at others (and themselves) in order to size them up and pass judgment. In Sonnet 29, we get the sens...
"Fortune" and "Fate"
The speaker likes to toss around the words "fortune" and "fate" in this sonnet—mostly because he feels like he's had a lot of really crummy luck in his personal life. Is this really true? We're n...