Tax Lawyer's Blog

Pappas on Taxation

Tax Lawyer's Blog header image 3

The Sonnets

Shakespeare composed 154 sonnets which are divided into three groups:

  1. Sonnets to a Young Man Urging Marriage - 1-27
  2. Sonnets to a Young Man Various Themes 28-127
  3. Sonnets to the “Dark Lady” – 128-154

Some of Shakespeare’s sonnet arrangements are thought to be autobiographical.

The Sonnets

  1. From fairest creatures we desire increase
  2. When forty winters shall beseige thy brow
  3. Look into thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
  4. Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
  5. Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
  6. Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
  7. Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
  8. Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
  9. Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye
  10. For shame! deny that thou bear’st love to any,
  11. As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
  12. When I do count the clock that tells the time,
  13. O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are
  14. Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;
  15. When I consider every thing that grows
  16. But wherefore do not you a mightier way
  17. Who will believe my verse in time to come,
  18. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
  19. Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
  20. Woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted
  21. So is it not with me as with that Muse
  22. My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
  23. As an unperfect actor on the stage
  24. Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath stell’d
  25. Let those who are in favour with their stars
  26. Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
  27. Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
  28. How can I then return in happy plight,
  29. When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
  30. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
  31. Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
  32. If thou survive my well-contented day,
  33. Full many a glorious morning have I seen
  34. Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
  35. No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
  36. Let me confess that we two must be twain,
  37. As a decrepit father takes delight
  38. How can my Muse want subject to invent,
  39. O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
  40. Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
  41. Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,
  42. That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
  43. When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
  44. If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
  45. The other two, slight air and purging fire,
  46. Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
  47. Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
  48. How careful was I, when I took my way,
  49. Against that time, if ever that time come,
  50. How heavy do I journey on the way,
  51. Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
  52. So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
  53. What is your substance, whereof are you made,
  54. O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
  55. Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
  56. Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
  57. Being your slave, what should I do but tend
  58. That god forbid that made me first your slave,
  59. If there be nothing new, but that which is
  60. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
  61. Is it thy will thy image should keep open
  62. Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
  63. Against my love shall be, as I am now,
  64. When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced
  65. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
  66. Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
  67. Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
  68. Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
  69. Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view
  70. That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
  71. No longer mourn for me when I am dead
  72. O, lest the world should task you to recite
  73. That time of year thou mayst in me behold
  74. But be contented: when that fell arrest
  75. So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
  76. Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
  77. Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
  78. So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
  79. Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
  80. O, how I faint when I of you do write,
  81. Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
  82. I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
  83. I never saw that you did painting need
  84. Who is it that says most? which can say more
  85. My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
  86. Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
  87. Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
  88. When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
  89. Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
  90. Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
  91. Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
  92. But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
  93. So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
  94. They that have power to hurt and will do none,
  95. How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
  96. Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
  97. How like a winter hath my absence been
  98. From you have I been absent in the spring,
  99. The forward violet thus did I chide:
  100. Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long
  101. O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
  102. My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming;
  103. Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth,
  104. To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
  105. Let not my love be call’d idolatry,
  106. When in the chronicle of wasted time
  107. Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
  108. What’s in the brain that ink may character
  109. O, never say that I was false of heart,
  110. Alas, ’tis true I have gone here and there
  111. O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
  112. Your love and pity doth the impression fill
  113. Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
  114. Or whether doth my mind, being crown’d with you,
  115. Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
  116. Let me not to the marriage of true minds
  117. Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
  118. Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
  119. What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
  120. That you were once unkind befriends me now,
  121. ‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d,
  122. Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
  123. No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
  124. If my dear love were but the child of state,
  125. Were ‘t aught to me I bore the canopy,
  126. O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
  127. In the old age black was not counted fair,
  128. How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st,
  129. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
  130. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
  131. Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
  132. Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
  133. Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
  134. So, now I have confess’d that he is thine,
  135. Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy ‘Will,’
  136. If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near,
  137. Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
  138. When my love swears that she is made of truth
  139. O, call not me to justify the wrong
  140. Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
  141. In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
  142. Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,
  143. Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch
  144. Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
  145. Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
  146. Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
  147. My love is as a fever, longing still
  148. O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,
  149. Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
  150. O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
  151. Love is too young to know what conscience is;
  152. In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,
  153. Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:
  154. The little Love-god lying once asleep

No Comments

0 responses so far ↓

  • There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.

Leave a Comment