The Sonnets Read online

  The Sonnets

  William Shakespeare

  Sonnets are fourteen-line lyric poems, traditionally written in iambic pentameter - that is, in lines ten syllables long, with accents falling on every second syllable, as in: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summerʼs day?’. Sonnets originated in Italy and were introduced to England during the Tudor period by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Shakespeare followed the more idiomatic rhyme scheme of sonnets that Sir Philip Sydney used in the first great Elizabethan sonnets cycle, Astrophel and Stella (these sonnets were published posthumously in 1591). Sonnets are formal poems and consist of 14 lines (3 quatrains and a couplet) Poems may be accessed by clicking the above Poems link for texts of the poems of William Shakespeare — Venus and Adonis, Rape of Lucrece, Lover's Complaint and Phoenix and the Turtle.

  William Shakespeare

  THE SONNETS

  I

  From fairest creatures we desire increase,

  That thereby beautyʼs rose might never die,

  But as the riper should by time decease,

  His tender heir might bear his memory:

  But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,

  Feedʼst thy lightʼs flame with self-substantial fuel,

  Making a famine where abundance lies,

  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:

  Thou that art now the worldʼs fresh ornament,

  And only herald to the gaudy spring,

  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

  And tender churl makʼst waste in niggarding:

  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

  To eat the worldʼs due, by the grave and thee.

  II

  When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

  And dig deep trenches in thy beautyʼs field,

  Thy youthʼs proud livery so gazed on now,

  Will be a tatterʼd weed of small worth held:

  Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,

  Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;

  To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,

  Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.

  How much more praise deservʼd thy beautyʼs use,

  If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine

  Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’

  Proving his beauty by succession thine!

  This were to be new made when thou art old,

  And see thy blood warm when thou feelʼst it cold.

  III

  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest

  Now is the time that face should form another;

  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

  For where is she so fair whose unearʼd womb

  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,

  Of his self-love to stop posterity?

  Thou art thy motherʼs glass and she in thee

  Calls back the lovely April of her prime;

  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

  Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

  But if thou live, rememberʼd not to be,

  Die single and thine image dies with thee.

  IV

  Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

  Upon thy self thy beautyʼs legacy?

  Natureʼs bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,

  And being frank she lends to those are free:

  Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

  The bounteous largess given thee to give?

  Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

  So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

  For having traffic with thy self alone,

  Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:

  Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,

  What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

  Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,

  Which, used, lives thʼ executor to be.

  V

  Those hours, that with gentle work did frame

  The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,

  Will play the tyrants to the very same

  And that unfair which fairly doth excel;

  For never-resting time leads summer on

  To hideous winter, and confounds him there;

  Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,

  Beauty oʼer-snowed and bareness every where:

  Then were not summerʼs distillation left,

  A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,

  Beautyʼs effect with beauty were bereft,

  Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:

  But flowers distillʼd, though they with winter meet,

  Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

  VI

  Then let not winterʼs ragged hand deface,

  In thee thy summer, ere thou be distillʼd:

  Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

  With beautyʼs treasure ere it be self-killʼd.

  That use is not forbidden usury,

  Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

  Thatʼs for thy self to breed another thee,

  Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

  Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,

  If ten of thine ten times refigurʼd thee:

  Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,

  Leaving thee living in posterity?

  Be not self-willʼd, for thou art much too fair

  To be deathʼs conquest and make worms thine heir.

  VII

  Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

  Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

  Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

  Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

  And having climbʼd the steep-up heavenly hill,

  Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

  Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

  Attending on his golden pilgrimage:

  But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

  Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,

  The eyes, ʼfore duteous, now converted are

  From his low tract, and look another way:

  So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:

  Unlookʼd, on diest unless thou get a son.

  VIII

  Music to hear, why hearʼst thou music sadly?

  Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:

  Why lovʼst thou that which thou receivʼst not gladly,

  Or else receivʼst with pleasure thine annoy?

  If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

  By unions married, do offend thine ear,

  They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

  In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

  Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

  Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;

  Resembling sire and child and happy mother,

  Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

  Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,

  Sings this to thee: ʼThou single wilt prove none.ʼ

  IX

  Is it for fear to wet a widowʼs eye,

  That thou consumʼst thy self in single life?

  Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

  The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

  The world will be thy widow and still weep

  That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

  When every private widow well may keep

  By childrenʼs eyes, her husbandʼs shape in mind:
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  Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend

  Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

  But beautyʼs waste hath in the world an end,

  And kept unused the user so destroys it.

  No love toward others in that bosom sits

  That on himself such murdʼrous shame commits.

  X

  For shame! deny that thou bearʼst love to any,

  Who for thy self art so unprovident.

  Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belovʼd of many,

  But that thou none lovʼst is most evident:

  For thou art so possessʼd with murderous hate,

  That ʼgainst thy self thou stickʼst not to conspire,

  Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

  Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

  O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:

  Shall hate be fairer lodgʼd than gentle love?

  Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

  Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:

  Make thee another self for love of me,

  That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

  XI

  As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growʼst,

  In one of thine, from that which thou departest;

  And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowʼst,

  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 cease

  And threescore year would make the world away.

  Let those whom nature hath not made for store,

  Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:

  Look, whom she best endowʼd, she gave thee more;

  Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:

  She carvʼd thee for her seal, and meant thereby,

  Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

  XII

  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 oʼer with white;

  When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,

  Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

  And summerʼs green all girded up in sheaves,

  Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

  Then of thy beauty do I question make,

  That thou among the wastes of time must go,

  Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake

  And die as fast as they see others grow;

  And nothing ʼgainst Timeʼs scythe can make defence

  Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

  XIII

  O! that you were your self; but, love you are

  No 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 lease

  Find no determination; then you were

  Yourself again, after yourselfʼs decease,

  When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

  Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

  Which husbandry in honour might uphold,

  Against the stormy gusts of winterʼs day

  And barren rage of deathʼs eternal cold?

  O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

  You had a father: let your son say so.

  XIV

  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 seasonsʼ 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 well

  By oft predict that I in heaven find:

  But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

  And constant stars in them I read such art

  As ‘Truth and beauty shall together thrive,

  If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert’;

  Or else of thee this I prognosticate:

  ‘Thy end is truthʼs and beautyʼs doom and date.’

  XV

  When I consider every thing that grows

  Holds in perfection but a little moment,

  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

  Whereon 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 conceit of this inconstant stay

  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

  Where wasteful Time debateth with decay

  To change your day of youth to sullied night,

  And all in war with Time for love of you,

  As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

  XVI

  But wherefore do not you a mightier way

  Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?

  And fortify your self in your decay

  With 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 of life that life repair,

  Which this, Timeʼs pencil, or my pupil pen,

  Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,

  Can make you live your self in eyes of men.

  To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,

  And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

  XVII

  Who will believe my verse in time to come,

  If it were fillʼd with your most high deserts?

  Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb

  Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.

  If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

  And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

  The age to come would say ‘This poet lies;

  Such heavenly touches neʼer touchʼd earthly faces.’

  So should my papers, yellowʼd with their age,

  Be scornʼd, like old men of less truth than tongue,

  And your true rights be termʼd a poetʼs rage

  And stretched metre of an antique song:

  But were some child of yours alive that time,

  You should live twice,—in it, and in my rhyme.

  XVIII

  Shall I compare thee to a summerʼs day?

  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

  And summerʼs lease hath all too short a date:

  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

  And often is his gold complexion dimmʼd,

  And every fair from fair sometime declines,

  By chance, or natureʼs changing course untrimmʼd:

  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

  Nor lose possession of that fair thou owʼst,

  Nor shall death brag thou wanderʼst in his shade,

  When in eternal lines to time thou growʼst,

  So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

  XIX

  Devouring Time, blunt thou the lionʼs paws,

  And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

  Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tigerʼs jaws,

  And burn the long-livʼd phoenix, in her blood;

  Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,<
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  And do whateʼer thou wilt, swift-footed Time,

  To the wide world and all her fading sweets;

  But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

  O! carve not with thy hours my loveʼs fair brow,

  Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;

  Him in thy course untainted do allow

  For beautyʼs pattern to succeeding men.

  Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,

  My love shall in my verse ever live young.

  XX

  A womanʼs face with natureʼs own hand painted,

  Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;

  A womanʼs gentle heart, but not acquainted

  With shifting change, as is false womenʼs fashion:

  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

  A man in hue all ʼhuesʼ in his controlling,

  Which steals menʼs eyes and womenʼs souls amazeth.

  And for a woman wert thou first created;

  Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

  And by addition me of thee defeated,

  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

  But since she prickʼd thee out for womenʼs pleasure,

  Mine be thy love and thy loveʼs use their treasure.

  XXI

  So is it not with me as with that Muse,

  Stirrʼd by a painted beauty to his verse,

  Who heaven itself for ornament doth use

  And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,

  Making a couplement of proud compare,

  With sun and moon, with earth and seaʼs rich gems,

  With Aprilʼs first-born flowers, and all things rare,