Sonnet · Sad
Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way
How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-50
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Sad, Friendship
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Shakespeare1564–1616
- Source record
- PoetryDBSonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way by william-shakespeare, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 12f5b907b0a08088…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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