First of all I have to read the title to make predictions about the possible content of the text. Reading it I may expect the poem to be about an action causes a waste of energy, maybe the love. Love generally should not cause a waste of energy but it should give this one, because who receives love is generally happy and who is happy can face better the different situation of life, unless the person does not live the love as a pain. In this case, instead, the poem may be a parody of the courtly love poetry; indeed William Shakespeare’s sonnets were parody of the courtly love poetry and this sonnet belongs to the collection of 154 sonnets published in 1609. The reader can understand this also because the poem bears the same title of its first line. The apostrophe gives emphasis to the title.

The poem is organized into three quatrains and a rhyming couplet according to the Elizabethan model.

In the first quatrain the speaking voice says that lust is a waste of energy in a waste of shame and when it is in action it is false, murderous, bloody, full of blame, savage, extreme, rude and cruel.

In the second and third quatrain the speaking voice continue the description of lust, saying that it is enjoyed, but also despised, it is hunted and hated madly as a swallowed bait and its purpose is to make the lover mad. The lover becomes mad in looking for it and when he posses it; the lover tries to have it that is a deep joy in a great sorrow. Before lust seems a joy proposed, behind a dream.

In the rhyming couplet the speaking voice concludes and he says that the entire world knows lust but not in a certain way to avoid the heaven that leads men to the hell.

The first quatrain has the function to introduce the situation, the second and the third stanzas are expansions of the first one, while the couplet is an epigrammatic close that poses a possible solution.

The entire poem is based on the figure of the lust, a feeling of strong sexual desire for someone. The reader can understand this because there are many words within the text linked with it like “perjured, murd’rous, bloody, blame, savage, extreme, rude, cruel, enjoyed, despised, hunted, hated, past reason, mad, bliss, woe, joy, dream”. This is the semantic field of lust and it returns within the whore sonnet. The lust represented the orgasm and the speaking voice underlines that when you reach the orgasm you understand that it is not very good. So there is a contrast between strong desire before and hate and disgust after consummation of that. The orgasm brought to a waste of energy that is also sperm. This may represent the life but at the same time the pleasure of sex. So it has got a double face; this hypothesis is confirmed when the speaking voice concludes saying that lust before is a joy, behind a dream.

The rhythm is very slow thanks to the use of comma and semicolon and these devices invite the reader to stop and reflect; thanks to this slow rhythm the poem seems to communicate that the process to understand what lust is very difficult and this is confirmed when the speaking voice says that man does not know lust very well.

Analysing the phonological level the reader can notice that there are many harsh sounds and these remind the idea of the strong of lust. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and rhymes create musical harmony and make the poem easier to remember.