Sonnet VIII
Labe describes the suffering that is romantic love. She compares love to a continual life-death cycle, which denies the lover relief and consistency. At once there is both grief and joy, but they both shift and change until the lover wakes once again to start the cycle all over.
While Yet These Tears
Driven to despair by grief, Labe turns to death as a balm. She wants to exercise the autonomy she still has over herself to remember. The dream is the cause of the suffering, however, and leads her further into despair, until she accepts death as an inevitable friend.
Sonnet XXIII
Grieving the loss of a lover, Labe writes him an angry poem. She accuses him of have tricked her into believing he was loyal and true and eager to care for her, when all he really sought was power over her. Nevertheless, Labe relents and begs forgiveness. While she feels entitled to her anger, she allows that surely he is suffering just as greatly in her absence as she is in his.
Sonnet XIV
In this poem, Labe is torn between internal duty and her love for another. She knows that she must rely upon herself, but she misses the mutual understanding which she and her lover possessed which is denied her now in her acceptance of self. Tortured by the loss, she still resists the temptation to think suicidally. She argues that now is the time to test her abilities. When they fail and her senses fail, she will welcome death.
