Speaker

The only real character in the poem is the speaker. He is an uncertain figure, about whom little information is provided to the reader. We do see that he is a passionately romantic character. He evidently feels his emotions very deeply, and the lack of ability to express them is enormously painful to him. However, of his life circumstances or biography we learn little. This is common in sonnets, which are often written to remain deliberately abstract about the speaker in order to provide a depiction of the universal experiences of someone in love.

The Beloved

If the poem is ambiguous about the speaker, it is nearly silent on the subject of the person with whom the speaker is in love. The only indication we have that this person even exists is in line 11: “I love another”. But who this other may be is not described at all...