Shakespeare's Sonnets And A Lover's Complaint

This narrative poem, consisting of forty-seven seven-line stanzas written in the rhyme royal, presents a lengthy speech by an abandoned young woman, including a speech within her speech, as she recounts the words by which she was seduced. The poem begins with the speaker describing seeing a young woman weeping at the edge of a river, into which she throws torn-up letters, rings, and other tokens of love. An old man nearby approaches the woman and asks the reason for her sorrow. She responds by telling him of a former lover who pursued, seduced, and finally abandoned her. She recounts in detail the speech her lover gave to her which seduced her.