Summary

The speaker addresses their "silent" friend who is presumably far away (1). He encourages them to notice their breathing and the way their existence takes up space around them, asking for their presence to "ring out like a bell" in the middle of the night (3). The speaker asks the friend to think about the phenomenon of transformation and to become a more fluid and amorphous being.

The speaker continues by telling the friend to "be the power" that morphs one's own senses "into their magic ring" (9-10). He wants the friend to fully embrace the phenomenon of their own existence. If, the speaker posits, the world has forgotten who they are, the friend should tell the earth, "I'm flowing" and tell the water "I am" (13-14).

Analysis

The twenty-ninth sonnet of Part II of The Sonnets to Orpheus has become one of the most celebrated...