Summary

Sonnet 87 thrusts the sequence into past tense as the speaker begins, "When I was forced from Stella, ever dear.../ I found that she with me did smart" (1-5). The poem details the speaker's reactions to having been rejected again by the Beloved, and ends on a hopeless note as the speaker declares that he is "vexed" (14). The following four sonnets return to the angst and anxiety that had been articulated toward the beginning of the sequence, as the speaker writes a meditation on the absence of the Beloved (Sonnet 88), absence of the Beloved at night (Sonnet 89), his failure and shortcomings as a poet (Sonnet 90), and his experience of eternal night without the Beloved (Sonnet 91).

Sonnet 92 resurrects the character of the friend as Astrophel says, "Be your words made, good sir, of Indian ware, / That you allow me them by so small...