The Speaker

Unlike many lyric poems, the speaker is almost entirely absent from this sonnet. Instead, the speaker places his focus on the addressee, giving them encouragement and instructions over the course of the poem. The speaker clearly cares for the addressee and wants to provide a sense of comfort to them, but it is likely that the speaker is supposed to be addressing humanity in general rather than a particular person. The speaker refers to his addressee as a "silent friend of many distances," suggesting that they may not know one another at all (1). However, the speaker minimizes their own presence (they do not use the first-person "I" at any point in the poem) in order to maintain focus on the experience of the second-person addressee and therefore the reader.

The Addressee

The person to whom the speaker addresses is the central character of the poem, as the...