This sonnet follows on from the sonnet I posted a little while ago, not just numerically but in the theme of it. In the last sonnet, number XXVII, the poet could not sleep for thinking about his beloved, here the poet is separated from the object of his love. He’s not with him during the day, and he can’t sleep because his mind is constantly busy with thoughts about him.
Sonnet XXVIII
How can I then return in happy plight,
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day’s oppression is not eas’d 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-complexion’d night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.by William Shakespeare
Lois Elsden 