sonnets-english

«I never saw that you did painting need And therefore to your fair no painting set».  Apparently having […]

«I grant thou wert not married to my Muse And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook».  A less subdued […]

«Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten».  The […]

«O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name».  […]

«Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace».  Sonnet 79 […]

«So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse And found such fair assistance in my verse».  The […]

«Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste».  The youth’s […]

«Why is my verse so barren of new pride, So far from variation or quick change?».  Complaining that […]

«So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground».  […]

«But be contented: when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away».  The poet continues his […]

«That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang».  […]

«O, lest the world should task you to recite What merit lived in me, that you should love».  […]

«No longer mourn for me when I am dead Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell».  In […]

«That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair».  The […]

«Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can […]

«Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty lived and died as flowers do now».  […]

«Ah! wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety».  Sonnet 67 continues the thought […]

«Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As, to behold desert a beggar born».  Were it […]

«Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’er-sways their power».  Continuing many of […]

«When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age».  In […]

«Against my love shall be, as I am now, With Time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’er-worn».  References to […]

«Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye And all my soul and all my every part».  The poet […]

«Is it thy will thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night?».  The youth […]

«Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end».  Sonnet […]