Shakespeare’s Sonnets and a Lover?s Complaint

This narrative poem, consisting of fortyseven sevenline stanzas written in the rhyme royal, presents a lengthy speech by an abandoned young woman, including a speech within her speech, as she recounts the words by which she was seduced. The poem begins with the speaker describing seeing a young woman weeping at the edge of a river, into which she throws tornup letters, rings, and other tokens of love. An old man nearby approaches the woman and asks the reason for her sorrow. She responds by telling him of a former lover who pursued, seduced, and finally abandoned her. She recounts in detail the speech her lover gave to her which seduced her.