Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst to Steal Thyself Away

SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived

Sonnet 92 continues from Sonnet 91 and sets out a compelling – if perhaps strictly speaking somewhat sophistic – argument why the young man may, as the previous sonnet in its closing couplet considered to be a distinct possibility, leave Shakespeare whenever he feels like it, but without in doing so actually making him, Shakespeare, most wretched as a result, as the same sonnet also suggested would be the case.

This sonnet thus appears to contradict the consequence to the poet of a breakup put forward by Sonnet 91, but the ostensible options it offers for his happiness are stark: I can be happy because you love me or because I am dead.

Like Sonnet 91, though, this poem too weaves the thread of thought further and leads into Sonnet 93 as the third part of the argumentation and in doing so it ushers in a rather radical change in tone which will become increasingly pronounced in the two poems that then follow, Sonnets 94 and 95.