The speaker is suffering writer's block and complains that both day and night seem to be conspiring to keep him from fulfilling his beloved writing duties.
First Quatrain: “How can I then return in happy plight”
In Shakespeare Sonnet 28, the speaker questions his muse: how can I ever be happy again, when I cannot get a refreshing sleep, and when my beloved muse seems to have abandoned me.
During the day, he is oppressed, and then during the night he is oppressed. He is unable to write during the day, and then at night he worries about not being able to write. This speaker is usually so confident in his abilities, but as all creative individuals do, he is suffering a period of dryness, when nothing seems to work to call forth joy and creativity from his heart and mind.
Second Quatrain: “And each, though enemies to either’s reign”
Day and night keep separate kingdoms and seem to have little to do with each other, but now during the writer’s time of dryness and emptiness, it seems that day and night both conspire to keep him in a state of “torture.”
He toils by day—tries his best to overcome his block, and then by night he also toils by complaining how much he toiled during the day. And all of this toiling does not bring him closer to his beloved accomplishments, his talent, and his creation of poetry. He remains, “still further off from thee.”
Notice that the speaker uses the term “further” rather than “farther.” This distinction indicates that the speaker is not referring to physical distance; he is not on a journey and separated from another person. He is separated from his God-given talent by writer’s block. As day and night conspire to keep him tired and his creative juices blocked, he feels each day adds an additional weight of separation from his beloved duty of writing.
Third Quatrain: “I tell the day, to please him thou art bright”
The speaker tries to coax day to let him create by telling day that his poet creations are also “bright” and can actually brighten up day’s domain when there are clouds blocking the sun. And he “flatter[s]” the god of night by telling the “swart-complexion’d” one that his poetry can light up the heavens when the stars are not visible.
He uses the term “twire” which means twinkle but also in Shakespeare’s time meant “to sing.” His poems, he avers, can sing for the stars, if night time will only relent and let him rest.
The Couplet: “But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer”
But no matter how he cajoles the gods of day and night, day seems to make his life more and more sorrowful and night makes his grief even heavier: “But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, / And night doth nightly make grief’s strength seem stronger.”
The poet’s use of a poetic device known as incremental repetition—“day doth daily” and “night doth nightly”—offers a meaningful component to this poem that focuses so heavily on the day and night as conspirators in this speaker’s complaint.
Other articles on Shakespeare: Who is Shakespeare?
Sonnet Commentaries: Sonnet 1, Sonnet 2, Sonnet 3, Sonnet 4, Sonnet 5, Sonnet 6, Sonnet 7, Sonnet 8, Sonnet 9, Sonnet 10, Sonnet 11, Sonnet 12, Sonnet 13, Sonnet 14, Sonnet 15, Sonnet 16, Sonnet 17, Sonnet 18, Sonnet 19, Sonnet 20, Sonnet 21, Sonnet 22, Sonnet 23, Sonnet 24, Sonnet 25, Sonnet 26, Sonnet 27, Sonnet 116, Sonnet 126, Sonnet 130, Sonnet 138
