Hello and welcome back to The Daily Poem here on the Close Freeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by somebody who you haven't heard from in a little while, but you have heard from fairly often.

And that is William Shakespeare. Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616, and he is the world's most

famous writer, probably. Today I'm going to read sonnet number 30, which was one of the

154 sonnets that Shakespeare wrote. It was published in the quarto in 1609.

And this is how it goes.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, and with old woes new whale my dear times waste.

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, for precious friends hid in death stateless night,

and weep afresh loves long since cancel at woe, and moan the expense of many a vanished sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, and heavily from woe to woe, tell o'er the sad account of four bemoaned moan,

which I knew pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

all losses are restored and sorrow's end.

This is one of those classic Shakespearean

that speaks to sort of existential dread.

You know, having an existential crisis, I guess.

The poet seems to be looking back at his life and saying,

you know, what have I done?

I've wasted time.

He's looking back and remembering the lives of people who seem no longer to be living.

...