How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day’s oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night and night by day oppressed?
And each, though enemies to either’s reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day to please him, thou art bright,
And dost him grace, when clouds do blot the heaven;
So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou guil'st the even; But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.
Sonnet 28 is one of 154 sonnets published by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare in 1609. It is a part of what is considered the Fair Youth group, and part of another group (sonnets 27, 28, 43 and 61) that focuses on the solitary poet reflecting on his friend. There is a theme of night and sleeplessness, which is a traditional motif that also occurs in Petrarchan sonnets.[2]
^Hammond, Gerald. The Reader and the Young Man Sonnets. Barnes & Noble. 1981. p. 112. ISBN978-1-349-05443-5
