Theme:      Neglect
Content:    An apology to the subject for the author's past neglect that has now ended. A fairly complex sonnet in word-play, contrasts and structure.

Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely. But, by all above,

• A frank admission of having neglected the subject.
• The superlative most throughout the sonnet is used to reaffirm what the author genuinely values: most dear, most true and most most loving.
• The author's previous motley view morphs into the more positive most dear just as the offences morph into the more positive affections.
• made myself a motley to the view refers to acting on the stage, one of Shakespeare's occupations.
• A series of contrasting word-couplings contrast the author's past behaviour: here and there, cheap and dear, old and new, offences and affections.
• Mid-line rhyme in sold...old.
• The meaning of Askance and strangely is complemented by their being strangely positioned at the start of the next line and abruptly ending the sentence mid-line.
• But, by all above groups the preceding sestet into a logical unit.

 

• The meaning of blenches here would appear to be "deceptions".
• This couplet is distinct from the previous past/present tense sestet by being exclusively past tense.
• The contrasting word-play continues with worse and best.
• Q2 starts with Most and ends with love.

• The neglect is now claimed to be over.
• The Gored of Q1 (spelled Gor'd in the Quarto) morphs to God in Q3.
• This quatrain brings us back to the present tense with is then on to the future tense with shall and will.
• The contrasting word-play continues with newer and older.
• Deification of the subject, as in previous sonnets, with A god in love.
• The word most is now missing from this quatrain, supplanted by love.

• heaven is echoed in Even.
• most floods back with 2 successive instances and directly coupled with loving.
• The complex language and structuring of the quatrains that describe the author's past deceptions are now replaced in the couplet with the simpler sentiments of the present.