Great Regulars: Addressing God directly, the speaker is seeking

an answer to the question of why people, particularly poets, no longer demonstrate a deep devotion to God. In the past, many "Martyrs" burned for God, even as they maintained interest in other things. He suggests that "poetry" has become mere decoration, dedicated to romantic love that eventually fades. He wonders if poetry simply exists to serve venality.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: April Poet--George Herbert--Sonnet I

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The speaker then avers that the feeling she is experiencing is that of "a perfect rest" that has spread from her "brow" and over her "breast" and thus the rest of the physical person. She metaphorically faces the west, seeing "the purple land," while her consciousness continues to deepen. Averring that she "cannot see the grain" nor can she "feel the rain/Upon her hand," she demonstrates that her physical body has become unresponsive to physical stimuli.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Christina Rossetti's Dream Land

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In the first septain, the speaker portrays herself as "a possessed witch," who has gone out prowling the night in search of evil. On her metaphorical broomstick, he has flown over the "plain houses," looking "light by light" for something that she cannot identify, perhaps some way to fill what she perceives in a hole in her soul.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Sexton's Her Kind

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The speaker sarcastically proclaims that she would have him excuse her, when she knows that it is her beauty, not her sparkling personality or intelligence, which has captured his imagination, a situation that the speaker finds inimical to his true interests: "Her pretty looks have been my enemies."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 139

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The speaker, while remaining civil, does get in a zap here and there. By condescendingly remarking, "If I might teach thee wit," he implies that she is really too dull to be taught wit by him. But if, by chance, he could teach her to be clever, it would be better that they were not lovers. But because they are in relationship, he insists that she has to tell him what she means, because he is unable to glean her obfuscating communications.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 140

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