The poem opens with a description of a young woman crying at the brink of a river, throwing torn-up letters, jewelry, and other mementos of love into the water. An elderly gentleman approaches the woman and inquires about her sadness. She reacts by telling him about a previous lover who chased her, seduced her, and then abandoned her. She describes in detail how her lover enticed her with a speech. The 154 sonnets, all but two of which are addressed to a beautiful young man, 'Mr W.H., ' or a treacherous 'dark lady, ' contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, and deal with timeless subjects like love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and Time's destructio