Time pressure

I still need to write that paper that’s due at 6 p.m. today  L  But first, today’s sonnet:

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XC

  Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

  Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

  Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

  And do not drop in for an after-loss:

  Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,

  Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;

  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

  To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.

  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

  When other petty griefs have done their spite,

  But in the onset come: so shall I taste

  At first the very worst of fortune's might;

    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

    Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.

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Wow  J  Okay, I’ll call this a two-part volta:  The justification of twelve lines of imperatives starts with the and at the beginning of the closing couplet, but is only driven home in the last four words of the poem, so the second part of the volta is the comma in the last line (or maybe even the not in the last line).  More tomorrow—