Sonnet 23 and then his collection of poems to a play. Sonnet 23 is considered an English or Shakespearean Sonnet. It contains 14 iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme scheme is "abab cdcd efef gg". The form consists of three quatrains and a couplet. All of the lines, including the fifth line are examples of iambic pentameter: After the octave (the first two quatrains) there is often a change referred to as a volta. In Sonnet 23 the volta is line nine's suggestion. "For fear of trust" has drawn different, though not necessarily contradictory, glosses. Nicolaus Delius has it "from want of self-confidence,"
Sonnet 144 Sonnet 144 Sonnet 144 (along with Sonnet 138) was published in the "Passionate Pilgrim" (1599). Shortly before this, Francis Meres referred to Shakespeare's Sonnets in his handbook of Elizabethan poetry, "Palladis Tamia, or Wit's Treasurie", published in 1598, which was frequently talked about in the literary centers of London taverns. Shakespeare's sonnets are mostly addressed to a young man, but the chief subject of Sonnet 127 through Sonnet 152 is the "dark lady". Several sonnets portray a conflicted relationship between the speaker, the "dark lady" and the young man. Sonnet 144 is one of the most prominent sonnets to address