Sonnet 30 up of fourteen lines in three quatrains and a couplet, rhyming "abab cdcd efef gg". While using the rhyming and metrical structure of the 'English' or 'Surreyan' sonnet, Shakespeare often also reflected the rhetorical form of the Italian form also known as the Petrarchan sonnet. It divides the sonnet into two parts: the "octet" (the first eight lines) usually states and develops the subject, while the "sestet" (the last six lines) winds up to a climax. Thus a change in emphasis, known as the "volta", occurs between the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth lines —
Sonnet 1 octave-generalization will be followed by a particular sestet-application, an octave question will be followed by a sestet answer or at least a quatrain answer before the summarizing couplet". In lines one through four of this sonnet, Shakespeare writes about increasing and references memory. Here, Shakespeare chooses to rhyme "increase" and "decease", "die" and "memory" and then proceeds to use "eyes" and "lies", "fuel" and "cruel" as rhymes in the second quatrain (lines five through eight). In lines five through twelve, Shakespeare shifts to famine and waste. Carl Atkins highlights Shakespeare's inventiveness in the second quatrain, where the sonnet takes on