This poem consists of an octave and a sestet, and it follows the Shakespearean model (3 quatrains and a couplet).

Reading the title you can expect this sonnet to be about the waste of energy due to something.

In the first quatrain the poet introduces the problem: he starts describing the horrible qualities of the lust, a feeling full of contradictions, as Shakespeare writes in the 2^nd quatrain. In fact it’s pursued before, but hated and despised after. This strange sensation of contrast and contradiction makes men mad.

In the final couplet the poet concludes saying that everyone knows these things but none know how to avoid this.

In this sonnet the writer uses some alliteration, in particular in the lists (expense of spirit; bloody, full of blame…) and he uses also repetitions (in action, and till action; is lust, lust…) to give more pathos to these words and to mark the brutality of the lust.

In the second quatrain the contradictory words start to appear (enjoyed, despised; haunted, hated) and continue in the next quatrain and in the couplet (bliss, woe; heaven hell…).

Shakespeare uses these words taken from opposite semanthical spheres to create a sense of uncertainty and doubt, but also to explain the contradictions of lust. Maybe the poet himself is confused and don’t know how to avoid this feeling, as the last 2 lines can prove (yet none knows well, to shun the heaven that leads men to this hell).

The poet in this sonnet explains the brutality of lust, listing all its horrible qualities and its contradictions, but maybe hiself is the victim of this feeling, either he hates it.