Sonnet 87: Farewell, Thou Art Too Dear for My Possessing

SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived

With its complete change in tone, Sonnet 87 ushers in a new and decidedly different phase in the relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover.

The sonnet draws on the vocabulary of law, ownership, and finance and in these largely factual terms Shakespeare appears to concede that the young man is simply out of his league: it is the most dejected and most resigned we have heard our poet in relation to the young man, and it marks the beginning of a long end to their extraordinary and extraordinarily complex connection.