It is also part of the Fair Youth portion of the Shakespeare Sonnet collection where he writes about his affection for an unknown young man.

It is written in Shakespearean form, comprising fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, divided into three quatrains and a couplet.

Within the sonnet, the narrator spends time remembering and reflecting on sad memories of a dear friend.

Sonnet 30 starts with Shakespeare mulling over his past failings and sufferings, including his dead friends and that he feels that he hasn't done anything useful.

But in the final couplet Shakespeare comments on how thinking about his friend helps him to recover all of the things that he's lost, and it allows him stop mourning over all that has happened in the past.

[6] These sonnets are made up of fourteen lines in three quatrains and a couplet, with the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

[8] Thus a change in emphasis, known as the volta, occurs between the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth lines — between the octet and sestet.

[18] It's as if the narrator is taking meticulous accounts of his own grief and adds an unhealthy dose of guilt to the proceedings.

Instead ending with a joyous tone as if reminiscing about the dear friend produces restoration and gain, not loss.

[21] In the first line the phrase "sessions of sweet thought" introduces the concept of Shakespeare remembering past events.

[20] David West suggests that the couplet takes away the point of the beginning three quatrains by stating that the mountain of failure could be easily removed by the thought of the beloved.

[31] The second line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 30 provided the source of C. K. Scott Moncrieff's title, Remembrance of Things Past, for his English translation (publ.

1922-1931) of French author Marcel Proust's monumental novel in seven volumes, À la recherche du temps perdu (publ.