A Shakesperian Sonnet

To acquiesce my overwhelming anticipation to read Shakespeare's Hamlet, I am reading a few of the poet's sonnets. From over one hundred, I narrowed my broad selection down to sonnet 98. It reads as follows: 

From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt 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 seemed it winter still, and you away,

   As with your shadow I with these did play.

 

After first reading, the speaker is expressed to be aloof to the changing seasons evoking a deepening sense of stagnation. This idea is reinforced the speaker's reactions to  the landscape and planets in the midst of this transition form winter to spring. The speaker is "absent" in the spring , expressing that there is a sense of preoccupation or lacking for them. Furthermore, Shakespeare describes Saturn's planetary movement with the seasons representing its rotations at different speeds. In purgatory, Saturn is representative of sloth.  Saturn is also representative of absolving the cardinal sin of sloth, do-nothingness, stagnation. the planetary motion of Saturn abdicates the stagnation of winter in which all planets and life cease to be active and die. It commences the season of spring in which the prosperity of flora and fauna is resumed. Despite the sprouting of lilies, rose and their striking brilliance of color, the speaker remains frigid to these displays of new life and beauty. Mere "figures of delight", the flowers are only figments of a happiness the speaker seems to yearn for their brilliance does not manifest in the rejuvenation of his spirit.In an environment engulfed by the resilience and vivacity of spring, the speaker seems to forbid the welcome of new breath. The speaker's inhibitions to the spring time are further expressed as Shakespeare writes, "yet seemed it winter still". Stuck in winter, it is almost as if time has escaped the speaker. So now, the poem seems to describe a lamentation of years lost. Thus, the speaker chooses to remain in the darkness for winter stating, "As with your shadow I with these did play". The darkness can be interpreted as the past. There is a comfort in the past that the speaker finds. Representative in the new light of spring is the youth that precedes and threatens to replace his existence. As much as the poem portrays the liveliness of spring, it can really be alternately viewed through an entirely polar lens, one of death. If taken from the speaker's point of view, he bemoans over his/her own life. Perhaps the speaker is elderly or regrets some part of their life...