Sonnet 30in modern English, side by side

Addressed to the dear friend, this is a sonnet about memory: alone with his thoughts, the speaker relives every old grief, lost friend, and failed hope as if the pain were new. One thought of the friend cancels the whole account.

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When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:

When, in the quiet courtroom of sweet silent thought, I summon up memories of the past, I sigh over the many things I wanted and never got, and old sorrows make me mourn all over again the waste of my precious years.

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,5

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,

And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:

Then my eyes, though they are not used to crying, can drown in tears for dear friends hidden in death's endless night; I weep again over heartbreak that was settled long ago, and grieve the cost of many things now vanished from my sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er10

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

Then I can mourn over sorrows already finished, and heavily count up, grief by grief, the sad account of miseries I have mourned before — and I pay that bill all over again, as if I had never paid it.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.

But if, while all this is happening, I think of you, dear friend, every loss is made good and the sorrows end.

Famous lines in this scene

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past,” line 1

The opening imagines memory as a courtroom: the speaker 'summons' his past like a witness to a 'session' of court. The phrase 'remembrance of things past' became the traditional English title of Proust's great novel about memory, which is part of why the line is so widely recognized today.

“But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.” line 13

The couplet resolves the poem's accounting metaphor: after itemizing every grief like unpaid debts, the speaker finds that one thought of his friend balances the books — 'all losses are restor'd.' It is a compact statement of the sequence's recurring idea that love outweighs everything time takes away.

Confused by a different line? Paste any Shakespeare — any play, any edition — and get it in modern English.

Studying the language itself? Our Shakespearean English course teaches thou/thee, the verbs, and the meter — free through Unit 2. Or try the Shakespearean English translator.