Sonnet 98 argues that the beauty of spring means nothing to the absent speaker because its flowers are only copies of the young man, so that even in April it still feels like winter.
Sonnet 98: Full Poem
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
Text from the 1609 Quarto, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernized.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Sonnet 98 for quick reference.
What Sonnet 98 Means
Sonnet 98 is a poem about being away from someone you love at the loveliest time of year. The speaker was apart from the young man in spring, and spring went on without him noticing. The poem explains why.
The first quatrain paints a lively picture of April. The month is “proud-pied,” splendidly colored, and dressed “in all his trim,” his finest clothes. It has put “a spirit of youth in every thing,” so that even “heavy Saturn,” the god and planet linked with old age and gloom, laughed and leaped along with it.
At line 5, the speaker turns away from this scene. Neither the songs of birds nor the sweet smell of flowers, different in scent and color, could make him tell any “summer’s story,” a happy tale. He did not even pick the flowers from the earth’s “proud lap” where they grew.
The third quatrain continues the list of things he did not do. He did not wonder at the whiteness of the lily or praise the deep red of the rose. Then he gives the reason: the flowers were “but sweet,” merely pleasant, “but figures of delight,” only images of beauty. They were “Drawn after you,” copied from the young man, who is the “pattern,” the original model, of them all.
The couplet returns to the speaker’s mood. It still seemed like winter, with the young man away. The speaker played with the flowers as though they were his “shadow,” an image or likeness of him, the closest thing to the young man that he could have.
Sonnet 98 Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Themes
Sonnet 98 sits in a short run of poems about absence and the seasons, and its themes grow out of the contrast between a joyful world and a joyless speaker.
Absence and the Seasons
The poem’s central idea is that the speaker’s inner season does not match the calendar. It is spring, with April at its height, and still the speaker reports, “Yet seem’d it winter still.” The preceding poem, Sonnet 97, makes a similar claim about a different season: the time of separation was summer and autumn, but “How like a winter hath my absence been.” Read together, the two poems suggest that the young man’s absence makes winter of any season. The idea also touches the familiar link in the sonnets between the young man and summer, as in Sonnet 18.
The Beloved as the Original of Beauty
Lines 11 and 12 contain the poem’s boldest claim. The lily and the rose are not beautiful in their own right. They are “figures of delight, / Drawn after you,” copies made from the young man as their “pattern.” This reverses the usual direction of comparison. A poet might ordinarily praise a lover by saying her skin is white as a lily. Here, the lily is white because it is modeled on the young man. Sonnet 106 makes a related move, saying that old poets’ praises of beauty were “but prophecies” of the young man.
The Failure of Pleasure
The middle of the poem is a list of refusals. The speaker did not tell a summer’s story, did not pick the flowers, did not wonder at the lily, and did not praise the rose. These are the things a poet in spring would usually do, and the speaker’s failure to do them is a kind of silence. For a poet, failing to “praise” is a significant failure. The poem is, in part, an account of why the speaker could not write a spring poem, written in the form of a spring poem.
Form and Language
Sonnet 98 builds a crowded, colorful scene and then empties it, and its language of copying and images carries the argument.
Meter and Rhyme
The poem follows the usual Shakespearean pattern of three quatrains and a couplet in iambic pentameter, and its rhymes are full throughout. The meter of line 4 imitates the action it describes: “That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him” places its stresses on “heav-,” “Sat-,” “laugh’d,” “leap’d,” and “him,” with the two verbs coming close together in a little burst of energy. For more on these patterns, see the guide to meter and rhyme in the sonnets.
April and Saturn
The first quatrain uses personification to make spring a person. April is masculine, “dress’d in all his trim,” and he has the power to put “a spirit of youth” into things. Saturn, in Renaissance thought, was associated with old age, slowness, and melancholy, which is why he is “heavy.” The image of Saturn laughing and leaping is comic, and it shows how strong April’s influence is. If even Saturn can be cheered, the speaker’s inability to be cheered says a good deal about his state.
“Figures,” “Pattern,” and “Shadow”
The poem’s key words come from the language of drawing and imitation. “Figures” are images or representations. “Drawn after” means copied from a model, and a “pattern” is the original from which copies are made. “Shadow” in the final line means an image, likeness, or reflection, and the word appears in several of the sonnets with that sense, including Sonnet 27 and Sonnet 53. Together, these words turn the spring garden into something like a gallery of copies, each of them a reminder of an original that is not there.
“Summer’s Story”
In line 7, the speaker says the spring could not make him “any summer’s story tell.” A summer’s story is a cheerful tale, suited to a happy season. The phrase may be set against the idea of a winter’s tale, a sad story for dark nights. In The Winter’s Tale, the young prince Mamillius says, “A sad tale’s best for winter.” The speaker’s season is winter in spirit, so a summer’s story is the one thing he cannot tell.
A Closer Reading
Sonnet 98 praises the young man by making the whole of spring a set of copies of him, and it pays for that praise with the speaker’s loneliness.
The first quatrain is so vivid that it is easy to take it at face value, as a celebration of spring. But it is there to be rejected. The speaker builds up April’s power, giving him the strength to cheer even Saturn, so that his own failure to respond will seem more striking. The force that can make a melancholy god laugh cannot move the speaker. The scale of the spring scene is a measure of the scale of his absence.
The list of refusals that follows is carefully ordered. It moves from hearing (the “lays of birds”) to smell (“the sweet smell”) to touch (plucking the flowers) to sight (the lily’s white and the rose’s vermilion). The speaker’s senses are engaged, one after another, and each fails to deliver pleasure. Only after this does he explain, and his explanation is the poem’s most extravagant compliment: the flowers are pale imitations of the young man, drawn from him as from a “pattern.”
Yet the compliment has a sad side. If the flowers are copies of the young man, then the speaker is surrounded by reminders of him, and each reminder makes the absence sharper. The couplet’s final line expresses this precisely: “As with your shadow I with these did play.” To “play” with a shadow is to take comfort in something that is not the real thing. The speaker is like someone who holds a portrait because the person is gone. The flowers are both the best substitute available and proof that no substitute is enough.
The poem also makes a quiet claim about poetry. The speaker could not tell a “summer’s story” or “praise” the rose, yet the poem itself is a richly colored description of spring and flowers. It is a spring poem written by someone who says he could not write one, and its beauty comes from the same source as the flowers: the young man, who is its real subject. In the poem that follows, Sonnet 99, the speaker takes the idea further, scolding the flowers for stealing their beauty from the young man.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Sonnet 98, answered briefly.
Who Is Sonnet 98 Addressed To?
The young man of the Fair Youth sonnets. Sonnets 1 to 126 are generally read as addressed to him, and this poem carries on the theme of separation from Sonnet 97.
Why Is Saturn in Sonnet 98?
Saturn was associated with old age and melancholy, so “heavy Saturn” stands for gloom. The image of him laughing and leaping shows how powerful April’s cheerfulness is, which makes the speaker’s failure to be cheered more striking.
What Does “Proud-Pied April” Mean?
“Pied” means multicolored or patched with different colors, and “proud” suggests splendor. Together they describe April as brightly and showily colored with flowers. See the glossary of archaic words for more terms like these.
Why Does It Still Feel Like Winter in Sonnet 98?
Because the young man is away. The flowers are only copies of him, “Drawn after you,” so they remind the speaker of what he is missing instead of cheering him.
Where Is the Volta in Sonnet 98?
At line 5, with “Yet nor the lays of birds,” where the joyful April scene gives way to the speaker’s indifference. Line 11 gives the reason for that indifference, and the couplet, with a second “Yet,” returns to the feeling that it is still winter.
Related Sonnets
Three sonnets share this poem’s seasons, flowers, and praise of the young man as beauty’s model.