Shakespeare's Sonnets Navigator Summary of Sonnet 45 in the Table of Contents Notes for Sonnet 45

Shakespeare's Sonnet 45


  1    The other two, slight air and purging fire,
  2    Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
  3    The first my thought, the other my desire,
  4    These present-absent with swift motion slide.
  5    For when these quicker elements are gone
  6    In tender embassy of love to thee,
  7    My life, being made of four, with two alone
  8    Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;
  9    Until life's composition be recured
 10    By those swift messengers return'd from thee,
 11    Who even but now come back again, assured
 12    Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
 13      This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
 14      I send them back again and straight grow sad.
"slight air and purging fire"

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