Theme: Growing Love
Content: An affirmation of the author's love for his subject and that it is ever-growing. A probable follow-on from 113 & 114 denying that those critical sonnets represented the author's true feelings, yet hidden allusions to "sin" remain.
Those lines
that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said
I could not love you dearer;
Yet then my judgement knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
- Either accidentally, or deliberately, hidden references to sin that were clearly a feature of 114, abound in this sonnet, starting with lines.
- The word lines also contains the lies that the author says are in the lines.
- What the author's poetry says is the key issue of this quatrain represented here by the word said.
But reckoning
time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds
to th' course of alt'ring things
- Hidden references to sin continue within accidents, kings, intents, minds, things.
- Time takes over as the theme in this quatrain suppressing explicit references to saying but say is still present, phonetically hidden in sacred.
Alas, why, fearing of time's
tyranny,
Might I not then say
"Now I love you
best",
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
- The saying is now done by the author himself.
Love is a babe;
then might I not say
so,
To give full growth to that which still doth
grow.
- Love is personified as a babe (Cupid) that will never grow old and die: the perfect foil to time's tyranny.
- The saying concludes.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net