The comma as a volta :)

Sonnet 32 on this sunless afternoon:

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XXXII

  If thou survive my well-contented day,

  When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover

  And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

  These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

  Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,

  And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,

  Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

  Exceeded by the height of happier men.

  O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

  'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

  A dearer birth than this his love had brought,

  To march in ranks of better equipage:

    But since he died and poets better prove,

    Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.

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Hmm.  The real turn is in the last four words of the sonnet, so I’m leaning towards calling the comma in the last line the volta here  J  Although Shakespeare tips his hand (about that turn) in line 7 already, except that, in line 7, the two contrasting parts are in reverse order:  There, the for my love comes first, and the for their rhyme comes second (again, a chiasmus across half the poem).

Of course, it’s also possible to read the but at the beginning of the closing couplet (or even the O! at the beginning of the third quatrain) as the volta, but neither of those is nearly as interesting as reading a comma as a volta  J  More tomorrow morning!