You know it even if the number “29” doesn’t exactly jog your
memory. It begins “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes . . . .” Most
obviously, both this first line and the commenter’s pseudonym include the word
“eyes.” But that observation is about as keen as the strained associations to
which I sometimes resort that then lead my husband to joke, “Yeah, that’s like
saying that Hamlet and your patent
law brief both have the word ‘the’ in them.” More significantly, “dry eyes”
represent the opposite condition of the speaker in Sonnet 29.[1]
The sonnet’s speaker admits that feelings of shame, bad luck, personal failure,
professional disappointment prompt him to “trouble deaf heaven with [his]
bootless cries/And look upon [him]self and curse [his] fate[.]” He is then wracked
with envy—
Wishing me like to one more rich in
hope,
Featured like him, like him with
friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's
scope,
—and ennui:
With what I most enjoy contented
least[.]
But he finds a way to snap out of this self-loathing
pity-fest by thinking of the one he loves—and writing a nifty sonnet about it.
In doing so, his despair is replaced (for the moment) by a euphoric sense of
gratitude and equanimity:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost
despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my
state,
Like to the lark at break of day
arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at
heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such
wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state
with kings.
One could call this sonnet “Ode to Being Bipolar.” But
today, I prefer to think of it as “The Lawyer’s Lubricant” or “Hymn to Work”—as
in, “work as a response to dark moments of self-doubt” or “doubling-down
against dark doubts about the insignificance of one’s work.” I am not
suggesting that lawyers tend to be bipolar (although there is all that
empirical data about high instances of depression, substance abuse, divorce,
even suicide.) But being a lawyer, which starts with the affliction known as
“being a law student,” can be quite a grind—even for the highly compensated
strivers among us, which does not characterize most of us, by any stretch. And even
among the highly compensated one certainly does not find a neat correspondence with
the set of “happy lawyers”—although those three or four who nail the sweet spot
in that Venn diagram illustrating “wealthy lawyers” and “happy lawyers” probably
deserve universal awe.
But, seriously, every lawyer could use his or her own “Old Dry
Eyes” now and then, providing a gratuitous kick-start, just as the voice behind
Sonnet 29 needed the affection of a beautiful youth to help him shake off the
shadows and refuel for another round.
So go on: think about some lawyer or law student you know
who might be struggling with a bit of existential despair right now and throw
them a random ray of sunshine. You will make their day—just as I hope this post
makes a mysterious pair of dry eyes twinkle just a bit.
[1] From what I
can glean, the actual personage behind the anonymous “Old Dry Eyes” is a rather
sentiment fellow who appreciates poetry and, perhaps, blogs from a porch near
Las Vegas.