Sonnet CXXI by William Shakespeare
‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d, When not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost which is so deem’d Not by our feeling but by others’ seeing: For why should others false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which […]
Sonnet CXX by William Shakespeare
That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow which I then did feel Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammer’d steel. For if you were by my unkindness shaken As I by yours, you’ve pass’d a hell of time, And I, a tyrant, have […]
Sonnet CXVIII by William Shakespeare
Like as, to make our appetites more keen, With eager compounds we our palate urge, As, to prevent our maladies unseen, We sicken to shun sickness when we purge, Even so, being tuff of your ne’er-cloying sweetness, To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness To […]
Sonnet CXVII by William Shakespeare
Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all Wherein I should your great deserts repay, Forgot upon your dearest love to call, Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day; That I have frequent been with unknown minds And given to time your own dear-purchased right That I have hoisted sail to all the […]
Sonnet CXV by William Shakespeare
Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer: Yet then my judgment knew no reason why My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. But reckoning time, whose million’d accidents Creep in ‘twixt vows and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the […]
Sonnet CXLVIII by William Shakespeare
O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight! Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures falsely what they see aright? If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, What means the world to say it is not so? If it be […]
Sonnet CXLVII by William Shakespeare
My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve Desire is death, which […]
Sonnet CXLVI by William Shakespeare
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, these rebel powers that thee array; Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? […]
Sonnet CXLV by William Shakespeare
Those lips that Love’s own hand did make Breathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate’ To me that languish’d for her sake; But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet Was used in giving gentle doom, And taught it thus anew to […]
Sonnet CXLIX by William Shakespeare
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, When I against myself with thee partake? Do I not think on thee, when I forgot Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake? Who hateth thee that I do call my friend? On whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon? Nay, if thou lour’st […]
Sonnet CXLIV by William Shakespeare
Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a […]
Sonnet CXLII by William Shakespeare
Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving: O, but with mine compare thou thine own state, And thou shalt find it merits not reproving; Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, That have profaned their scarlet ornaments And seal’d false bonds of […]
Sonnet CXLI by William Shakespeare
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleased to dote; ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry […]
Sonnet CXL by William Shakespeare
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; Lest sorrow lend me words and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so; As testy sick men, when their […]
Sonnet CXIX by William Shakespeare
What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win! What wretched errors hath my heart committed, Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never! How have mine eyes out of their spheres been […]
Sonnet CXIV by William Shakespeare
Or whether doth my mind, being crown’d with you, Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alchemy, To make of monsters and things indigest Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, Creating every bad a perfect best, As fast […]
Sonnet CXIII by William Shakespeare
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind; And that which governs me to go about Doth part his function and is partly blind, Seems seeing, but effectually is out; For it no form delivers to the heart Of bird of flower, or shape, which it doth latch: Of his quick objects hath […]
Sonnet CXII by William Shakespeare
Your love and pity doth the impression fill Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow; For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow? You are my all the world, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue: None else to […]
Sonnet CXI: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide by William Shakespeare
O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdu’d To what it works in, like the dyer’s […]
Sonnet CXI by William Shakespeare
O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer’s […]
Sonnet CX by William Shakespeare
Alas, ’tis true I have gone here and there And made myself a motley to the view, Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new; Most true it is that I have look’d on truth Askance and strangely: but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart […]
Sonnet LX by William Shakespeare
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d, Crooked elipses ‘gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave […]
Sonnet LVIII by William Shakespeare
That god forbid that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure! O, let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison’d absence of your liberty; And patience, tame to sufferance, […]
Sonnet LVII by William Shakespeare
Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor services to do, till you require. Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence […]
Sonnet LVI by William Shakespeare
Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, Which but to-day by feeding is allay’d, To-morrow sharpen’d in his former might: So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness, To-morrow see again, and do not kill The spirit […]
Sonnet LV by William Shakespeare
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmear’d with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn The living […]
Sonnet LIX by William Shakespeare
If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss The second burden of a former child! O, that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since […]
Sonnet LIII by William Shakespeare
What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since every one hath, every one, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you; On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set, And you in Grecian tires […]
Sonnet LII by William Shakespeare
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, The which he will not every hour survey, For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, Since, seldom coming, in the long year set, Like stones of worth they thinly […]
Sonnet LI by William Shakespeare
Thus can my love excuse the slow offence Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed: From where thou art why should I haste me thence? Till I return, of posting is no need. O, what excuse will my poor beast then find, When swift extremity can seem but slow? Then should I spur, […]
Sonnet L by William Shakespeare
How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary travel’s end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say ‘Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!’ The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, As if by […]
Sonnet IX by William Shakespeare
Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye That thou consumest thyself 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 […]
Sonnet IV: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend by William Shakespeare
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s 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 […]
Sonnet IV by William Shakespeare
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s 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 […]
Sonnet III: Look In Thy Glass, and Tell the Face Thou Viewest by William Shakespeare
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 unear’d womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so […]
Sonnet III by William Shakespeare
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 unear’d womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so […]
Sonnet II: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow by William Shakespeare
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held: Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, […]
Sonnet II by William Shakespeare
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held: Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, […]
Sonnet I: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase by William Shakespeare
From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s 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, Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet […]
Sonnet I by William Shakespeare
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s 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, Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet […]