Category: Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath stell’d,Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart;My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,And perspective it is best painter’s art.For through the painter must you see his skill,To find where your true image pictur’d lies,Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,That hath his windows glazed…

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,And burn the long-liv’d phoenix, in her blood;Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,To the wide world and all her fading sweets;But I forbid thee one…

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,So long as youth and thou are of one date;But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,Then look I death my days should expiate.For all that beauty that doth cover thee,Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:How…

But wherefore do not you a mightier wayMake war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?And fortify your self in your decayWith means more blessed than my barren rhyme?Now stand you on the top of happy hours,And many maiden gardens, yet unset,With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,Much liker than your painted counterfeit:So should the lines…

When I consider every thing that growsHolds in perfection but a little moment,That this huge stage presenteth nought but showsWhereon the stars in secret influence comment;When I perceive that men as plants increase,Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,And wear their brave state out of memory;Then the…

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;And yet methinks I have astronomy,But not to tell of good or evil luck,Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,Or say with princes if it shall go wellBy oft predict that I in…

O! that you were your self; but, love you areNo longer yours, than you your self here live:Against this coming end you should prepare,And your sweet semblance to some other give:So should that beauty which you hold in leaseFind no determination; then you wereYourself again, after yourself’s decease,When your sweet issue your sweet form should…

When I do count the clock that tells the time,And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;When I behold the violet past prime,And sable curls, all silvered o’er with white;When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,Borne on the bier…

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st,In one of thine, from that which thou departest;And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st,Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest,Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;Without this folly, age, and cold decay:If all were minded so, the times should ceaseAnd threescore year would…

So is it not with me as with that Muse,Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse,Who heaven itself for ornament doth useAnd every fair with his fair doth rehearse,Making a couplement of proud compare.With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems,With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare,That heaven’s air in this…