Sonnet 31


Sonnet 31 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a sonnet within the Fair Youth sequence. Developing an idea introduced at the end of Sonnet 30, this poem figures the young man's superiority in terms of the possession of all the love the speaker has ever experienced.

Structure

Sonnet 31 is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet, with three quatrains followed by a final couplet. It follows the form's typical rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Like other Shakespearean sonnets it is written in iambic pentameter, a type of metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions per line.
Metrically the sonnet is fairly regular, but demands several syllabic contractions and expansions. The first two lines each contain one expansion :

 × / × / × / × × / / 
Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts,
 × / × / × / × / × / 
Which I by lacking have supposèd dead;

Also expanded is line four's three-syllable "burièd". Other syllables must be contracted, as two-syllable "many a" and three-syllable "obsequious" below. Both are instances of the y-glide, pronounced approximately man-ya and ob-seq-wyus. 

 × / × / × / × / × / 
How many a holy and obsequious tear

Also contracted are line six's "stol'n" and line seven's "int'rest".