Sonnet 150

The Dark Lady: Reckoning

Notes

TLN 2087archaic vocab
“With insufficiency my heart to sway”
'Insufficiency' means inadequacy or want of merit — here, the Dark Lady's own deficiency. The poet cannot explain how such insufficiency has the force to 'sway' (govern, overpower) his heart.
TLN 2088archaic vocab
“give the lie to my true sight”
'Give the lie' is an Elizabethan idiom for calling someone a liar to their face — the most serious public insult one person could offer another. The poet says the Dark Lady compels him to accuse his own eyes of lying: to 'swear that brightness doth not grace the day' means to deny something as plain as daylight.
TLN 2091archaic vocab
“the very refuse of thy deeds There is such strength and warrantise of skill”
'Refuse' (accent on the first syllable: REF-yooz) is a noun meaning cast-off waste, the worst leavings — not 'refusal.' 'Warrantise' is a legal term: a formal guarantee or warranty of quality. Together they say: even in the discarded dregs of her conduct, the poet finds something that seems to certify mastery.