SONNETCAST
  • Home
  • About
  • OVERVIEW
    • Introduction
    • The Procreation Sonnets
    • Special Guest: Professor Stephen Regan – The Sonnet as a Poetic Form
    • Special Guests: Sir Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson – The Order of the Sonnets
    • The Halfway Point Summary
    • The Rival Poet
    • Special Guest: Professor Gabriel Egan – Computational Approaches to the Study of Shakespeare
    • Special Guest: Professor Abigail Rokison-Woodall – Speaking Shakespeare
    • Special Guest: Professor David Crystal – Original Pronunciation
    • The Fair Youth
  • THE SONNETS
    • Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase
    • Sonnet 2: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow
    • Sonnet 3: Look in Thy Glass and Tell the Face Thou Viewest
    • Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend
    • Sonnet 5: Those Hours That With Gentle Work Did Frame
    • Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter's Ragged Hand Deface
    • Sonnet 7: Lo! In the Orient When the Gracious Light
    • Sonnet 8: Music to Hear, Why Hearst Thou Music Sadly?
    • Sonnet 9: Is it for Fear to Wet a Widow's Eye
    • Sonnet 10: For Shame Deny That Thou Bearst Love to Any
    • Sonnet 11: As Fast as Thou Shalt Wane, So Fast Thou Growst
    • Sonnet 12: When I Do Count the Clock that Tells the Time
    • Sonnet 13: O That You Were Yourself, But Love, You Are
    • Sonnet 14: Not From the Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck
    • Sonnet 15: When I Consider Every Thing That Grows
    • Sonnet 16: But Wherefore Do Not You a Mightier Way
    • Sonnet 17: Who Will Believe My Verse in Time to Come
    • Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day
    • Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, Blunt Thou the Lion's Paws
    • Sonnet 20: A Woman's Face, With Nature's Own Hand Painted
    • Sonnet 21: So Is it Not With Me as With That Muse
    • Sonnet 22: My Glass Shall Not Persuade Me I Am Old
    • Sonnet 23: As an Unperfect Actor on the Stage
    • Sonnet 24: Mine Eye Hath Played the Painter and Hath Stelled
    • Sonnet 25: Let Those Who Are in Favour With Their Stars
    • Sonnet 26: Lord of My Love to Whom in Vassalage
    • Sonnet 27: Weary With Toil, I Haste Me to My Bed
    • Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return in Happy Plight
    • Sonnet 29: When in Disgrace With Fortune and Men's Eyes
    • Sonnet 30: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought
    • Sonnet 31: Thy Bosom Is Endeared With All Hearts
    • Sonnet 32: If Thou Survive My Well-Contented Day
    • Sonnet 33: Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen
    • Sonnet 34: Why Didst Thou Promise Such a Beauteous Day
    • Sonnet 35: No More Be Grieved at That Which Thou Hast Done
    • Sonnet 36: Let Me Confess That We Two Must Be Twain
    • Sonnet 37: As a Decrepit Father Takes Delight
    • Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject to Invent
    • Sonnet 39: O How Thy Worth With Manners May I Sing
    • Sonnet 40: Take All My Loves, My Love, Yea Take Them All
    • Sonnet 41: Those Pretty Wrongs That Liberty Commits
    • Sonnet 42: That Thou Hast Her, it Is Not All My Grief
    • Sonnet 43: When Most I Wink, Then Do Mine Eyes Best See
    • Sonnet 44: If the Dull Substance of My Flesh Were Thought
    • Sonnet 45: The Other Two, Slight Air and Purging Fire
    • Sonnet 46: Mine Eye and Heart Are at a Mortal War
    • Sonnet 47: Betwixt Mine Eye and Heart a League Is Took
    • Sonnet 48: How Careful Was I When I Took My Way
    • Sonnet 49: Against That Time, if Ever That Time Come
    • Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey on the Way
    • Sonnet 51: Thus Can My Love Excuse the Slow Offence
    • Sonnet 52: So Am I as the Rich, Whose Blessed Key
    • Sonnet 53: What Is Your Substance, Whereof Are You Made
    • Sonnet 54: O How Much More Doth Beauty Beauteous Seem
    • Sonnet 55: Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments
    • Sonnet 56: Sweet Love, Renew Thy Force, Be it Not Said
    • Sonnet 57: Being Your Slave, What Should I Do But Tend
    • Sonnet 58: That God Forbid That Made Me First Your Slave
    • Sonnet 59: If There Be Nothing New, But That Which Is
    • Sonnet 60: Like as the Waves Make Towards the Pebbled Shore
    • Sonnet 61: Is it Thy Will Thy Image Should Keep Open
    • Sonnet 62: Sin of Self-Love Possesseth All Mine Eye
    • Sonnet 63: Against My Love Shall Be as I Am Now
    • Sonnet 64: When I have Seen by Time's Fell Hand Defaced
    • Sonnet 65: Since Brass, Nor Stone, Nor Earth, Nor Boundless Sea
    • Sonnet 66: Tired With All These, for Restful Death I Cry
    • Sonnet 67: Ah, Wherefore With Infection Should He Live
    • Sonnet 68: Thus Is His Cheek the Map of Days Outworn
    • Sonnet 69: Those Parts of Thee That The World's Eye Doth View
    • Sonnet 70: That Thou Are Blamed Shall Not Be Thy Defect
    • Sonnet 71: No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead
    • Sonnet 72: O Lest the World Should Task You to Recite
    • Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold
    • Sonnet 74: But Be Contented When That Fell Arrest
    • Sonnet 75: So Are You to My Thoughts as Food to Life
    • Sonnet 76: Why Is My Verse so Barren of New Pride
    • Sonnet 77: Thy Glass Will Show Thee How Thy Beauties Wear
    • Sonnet 78: So Oft Have I Invoked Thee for My Muse
    • Sonnet 79: Whilst I Alone Did Call Upon Thy Aid
    • Sonnet 80: O How I Faint When I of You Do Write
    • Sonnet 81: Or I Shall Live Your Epitaph to Make
    • Sonnet 82: I Grant Thou Wert Not Married to My Muse
    • Sonnet 83: I Never Saw That You Did Painting Need
    • Sonnet 84: Who Is it That Says Most, Which Can Say More
    • Sonnet 85: My Tongue-Tied Muse in Manners Holds Her Still
    • Sonnet 86: Was it the Proud Full Sail of His Great Verse
    • Sonnet 87: Farewell, Thou Art Too Dear for My Posessing
    • Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Disposed to Set Me Light
    • Sonnet 89: Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me for Some Fault
    • Sonnet 90: Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt, if Ever, Now
    • Sonnet 91: Some Glory in Their Birth, Some in Their Skill
    • Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst to Steal Thyself Away
    • Sonnet 93: So Shall I Live, Supposing Thou Art True
    • Sonnet 94: They That Have Power to Hurt and Will Do None
    • Sonnet 95: How Sweet and Lovely Dost Thou Make the Shame
    • Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness
    • Sonnet 97: How Like a Winter Hath my Absence Been
    • Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring
    • Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide
    • Sonnet 100: Where Art Thou, Muse, That Thou Forgetst so Long
    • Sonnet 101: O Truant Muse, What Shall Be Thy Amends
    • Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthened Though More Weak in Seeming
    • Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth
    • Sonnet 104: To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old
    • Sonnet 105: Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry
    • Sonnet 106: When in the Chronicle of Wasted Time
    • Sonnet 107: Not Mine Own Fears Nor the Prophetic Soul
    • Sonnet 108: What's in the Brain That Ink May Character
    • Sonnet 109: O Never Say That I Was False of Heart
    • Sonnet 110: Alas, 'Tis True I Have Gone Here and There
    • Sonnet 111: O For My Sake Do You With Fortune Chide
    • Sonnet 112: Your Love and Pity Doth Th'Impression Fill
    • Sonnet 113: Since I Left You, Mine Eye Is in My Mind
    • Sonnet 114: Or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned With You
    • Sonnet 115: Those Lines That I Before Have Writ Do Lie
    • Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
    • Sonnet 117: Accuse Me Thus, That I Have Scanted All
    • Sonnet 118: Like as to Make Our Appetites More Keen
    • Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk of Siren Tears
    • Sonnet 120: That You Were Once Unkind Befriends Me Now
    • Sonnet 121: Tis Better to Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed
    • Sonnet 122: Thy Gift, Thy Tables, Are Within My Brain
    • Sonnet 123: No! Time, Thou Shalt Not Boast That I Do Change
    • Sonnet 124: If My Dear Love Were But the Child of State
    • Sonnet 125: Were't Ought to Me I Bore the Canopy
    • Sonnet 126: O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who in Thy Power
    • Sonnet 127: In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair
    • Sonnet 128: How Oft When Thou, My Music, Music Playst
    • Sonnet 129: Th'Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame
    • Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
    • Sonnet 131: Thou Art as Tyrannous, so as Thou Art
    • Sonnet 132: Thine Eyes I love, and They, as Pitying Me
    • Sonnet 133: Beshrew That Heart That Makes My Heart to Groan
    • Sonnet 134: So Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine
    • Sonnet 135: Whoever Hath Her Wish, Thou Hast Thy Will
    • Sonnet 136: If Thy Soul Check Thee That I Come so Near
    • Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool Love, What Dost Thou to Mine Eyes
    • Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth
    • Sonnet 139: O Call Not Me to Justify the Wrong
    • Sonnet 140: Be Wise as Thou Art Cruel, Do Not Press
    • Sonnet 141: In Faith, I Do Not Love Thee With Mine Eyes
    • Sonnet 142: Love Is My Sin, and Thy Dear Virtue Hate
    • Sonnet 143: Lo! As a Careful Housewife Runs to Catch
    • Sonnet 144: Two Loves I Have of Comfort and Despair
    • Sonnet 145: Those Lips That Love's Own Hand Did Make
    • Sonnet 146: Poor Soul, the Centre of My Sinful Earth
    • Sonnet 147: My Love Is as a Fever, Longing Still
    • Sonnet 148: O Me! What Eyes Hath Love Put in My Head
    • Sonnet 149: Canst Thou, O Cruel, Say I Love Thee Not
    • Sonnet 150: O From What Power Hast Thou This Powerful Might
    • Sonnet 151: Love Is too Young to Know What Conscience Is
    • Sonnet 152: In Loving Thee Thou Knowst I Am Forsworn
    • Sonnet 153: Cupid Laid by His Brand and Fell Asleep
    • Sonnet 154: The Little Love-God, Lying Once Asleep
  • THE SONNETEER
  • EVENTS
  • TEXT NOTE
  • CONTACT
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Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst,
Nor shall Death brag thou wandrest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growst:
       So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
       So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
You are more lovely and more tempered or moderate and therefore more mild-mannered, more pleasing in your moods and in your emotional 'weather' than a summer day:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
The lovely early blossom buds of an early summer day in May get shaken by rough winds...
​And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
...and summer itself is all too short: 'date' here is an expiration date and so a lease that has a short date is a short lease. 
​Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
Sometimes the sun – 'the eye of heaven' – shines too hot...
And often is his gold complexion dimmed; 
...and also often the golden face of the sun is obscured, such as by clouds for example...
​And every fair from fair sometime declines,
...and everything that is beautiful will at some point lose this beauty...
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.
...cut down to its unadorned bare or barren state of old age by the vagaries of chance and accident, or simply by the ever-changing weather and seasons. 

Something that is 'trimmed' is decorated, so a summer day is 'trimmed' with beautiful flowers, for example, whereas once it has been 'untrimmed' then these adornments have been taken away, as happens to every summer day and to every living thing eventually through the passing of time and the events that occur in our lives.
​But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
But your summer will be eternal, it will not fade and thus come to an end...
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst,
...nor will it – your eternal summer and therefore by extension you – lose that beauty which you own.

Note that 'owst' does not mean something that you owe, but something that you own, it's a contraction of 'ownest'.
Nor shall death brag thou wandrest in his shade
Nor shall death – who is again here personified – ever be able to brag or boast that he has you in his shade, meaning that he, death, owns you because you are walking behind him – in his shadow – towards the valley of the dead... 
When in eternal lines to time thou growst:
...when you grow towards the future – time – in the eternal lines of my verse, because:
       ​So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
for as long as men – for which read all human beings – are alive on this planet and therefore able to breathe and their eyes can see and are therefore able to read...
       ​So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
...this sonnet here that I have written for you will live and it is this sonnet that makes you live forever. 

One of the most famous sonnets in the canon, Sonnet 18 bursts onto the scene with an energy, confidence, and message all of its own, setting the tone for a whole new kind of relationship and putting the poetry itself centre stage. It is one of the easiest to understand – which may in parts account for its immense popularity – and it is utterly delightful in its unabashed affirmation of life.

Gone is any attempt at making the young man marry to prolong his existence, to preserve his beauty, or to assure the continuation of his lineage. Some editors detect in the last line of the last quatrain a reference to the genealogical line, when I, the poet, say to the young man: "Nor shall death brag thou wandrest in his shade / When in eternal lines to time thou growst," but even that is at best spurious, as it is much more likely that I here simply refer to what I'm about to make so abundantly clear: these lines of poetry are what keep you alive in the minds and hearts of future generations.

This sonnet is a nearly direct declaration of love to, yes, its recipient, but even more so and much more directly to poetry itself, and what's more: it turns itself into a self-fulfilling prophecy, because when I conclude it with: "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." I tell no lie: we may not know for certain whom this sonnet is addressed to – although as you are aware if you've been following this excursion, we have been getting and will continue to receive some strong pointers – but whoever this person is, they exist vivid and strong in our imagination and they intrigue us to the point where we do ask – and almost have to ask – the question that so pushes itself to the fore now. And it is not so much a question as a bundle of questions which are all interwoven and which all appear in an instant together:

- Is this sonnet a 'real' communication to a 'real' person? Should we read it as something I, the poet, have written to an actual recipient or could it not be that it is simply an exercise in gorgeous poetry making? We have more or less answered this in the Introduction and been accepting the whole series so far as 'real': poetry written to a purpose to a real person, and there really is no reason to suddenly now assume that this here changes.

– If it is a real person, is it necessarily, as most people believe, still a man we are talking to, and is it necessarily the same man as the previous 17 sonnets? About this we talked a bit when looking at Sonnet 17, and there we observed a maybe not strictly linear but nevertheless clearly traceable trajectory these sonnets appear to be on. And so while it is possible that Sonnet 18 might have slipped into the collection here completely out of place, it doesn't look or sound it. At all. It sounds like it is exactly where it belongs, at the point in the relationship where I, the poet, give up on my task of trying to convince the young man to marry and have children, and instead pick up directly on what I said at the end of Sonnet 17, where I offered him two ways of perpetuating his existence: in his child and in my rhyme. Sonnet 18 now makes this second option the one that counts: the progression fits entirely. And if the recipient of this sonnet is the same person as the previous ones, then this does make him by necessity a young man, absolutely.

And this 'trajectory' of which we've spoken a few times now, this is not insignificant: if we not only look back at how this sonnet connects with the previous ones directly, but also forward to what I am about to say to the young man about himself, and his appearance, in Sonnet 20 and, before then in Sonnet 19, how I once again reiterate how my poetry can do the job I have previously ascribed to an offspring, namely allow this young man to conquer time and to live on throughout the ages, then almost any doubt as to the role this sonnet plays and whom it speaks to or why becomes effectively obsolete. Here as elsewhere I say 'almost' because there is a residual amount of doubt, always: we simply do not have proof positive about anything, but we have the words and the words give us such clear indicators now that it seems all but obtuse to still wonder, 'yes, but is it real?' or 'yes, but is it really the same person?' or even 'yes, but is it really a "Fair Youth" – a beautiful young man?' The reason we have over the last four hundred years widely and largely formed the opinion that it is is that very clearly it is.

And if this is correct, if it is real and if it is the same person and if that same person is, as we have reason to believe, a young English nobleman of high social status, who is obstinate in his refusal to marry, who is either a first-born or an only son, who bears a striking resemblance to his mother, and no longer has his father, then William Shakespeare here does something truly extraordinary. Because whoever this young man is, and our shortlist is by now really quite short, as we shortly shall discover, I, the poet, am now putting on paper and as far as anyone can tell telling this man that I am infatuated with him, that to me he is lovelier than a summer's day and that it is through me, none other, that he will live forever. That is, if nothing else, extraordinarily bold. And it presents us, as we proceed, with an entirely new question: what does the young man make of this?

Can we even assume, as we do, that he gets to read these lines? Or is this something that William Shakespeare, who as we have noted early on must by now be approaching thirty at least, like a teenager writes in his bedroom and keeps there in his drawer, as an unspoken fantasy?

We can't answer these questions yet, because our approach is to go by the words and what the words tell us alone, or almost alone, and the words don't give us any clue. Yet. But the 'yet', you will be glad to know, as so often before, is operational here: we will get very clear pointers on this too before too long.

And, indeed, in amongst all these truly fascinating questions and considerations about the person whom this poem might be addressed to, let's not ignore these words; let's let them actually speak to us: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" – For us this may sound like a nice little phrase that is probably also a poetic commonplace: something that poets routinely say or ask. And it clearly is: other poets in their poems will have likened someone they adore to a summer day. But put yourself into the England of around 1593: we have spoken before about how cold and bleak winter can be. Not only because there is no central heating, no electric light, no double glazing or contemporary construction and insulation materials, let alone textiles, but England, like much of Europe and indeed many other parts of the world, was then still going through what's known as the Little Ice Age, so winters were harsh and long.

What is particularly hard for us to imagine though is just how drab and dreary and colourless much of the dark season was. We are used to our world being illuminated and filled with colours all year round: we have brightly coloured clothes, we have gadgets and furniture in all kinds of colours, we have printed posters and brightly painted walls, and we spend much of our day looking at super-high definition screens and displays that show us everything in richly saturated spectra. In Shakespeare's day, other than for the exceptionally rich, colour did not feature in many people's lives for much of the year. The reason the rich wore colourful clothing was precisely because it was so expensive and thus so set them apart. Your ordinary person's winter day played out in shades of brown and beige and sooty grey.

So a summer's day, when it finally came, was a glorious thing. The fact that it did so with its darling buds apparently in May may on the one hand have to with the calendar in use at the time being out of synch with ours, which it was by ten days, since England continued using the Julian calendar long after catholic Europe adopted the corrected Gregorian calendar, or with a degree of poetic licence that allows Shakespeare to mingle signs of spring with those of summer, or indeed both.

The point being this: a summer's day is as good as it gets. A beautiful summer's day is the best. So if I say that you are better than that, then you are really rather amazing. Of course, Shakespeare actually qualifies his comparison and lists several ways in which even a summer day may well be imperfect. But here, as elsewhere, it may be kindest, most generous, and therefore probably best if we don't dwell too heavily on logic. This is poetry after all and not an exercise in mathematical thinking. Because, as also might be pointed out, what differentiates the beautiful young man here from the beautiful summer's day is not that only he can be eulogised in eternally lasting lines of poetry, but that this is what the poet chooses to do. If he felt like it, Shakespeare could probably write timeless poetry to and about a summer day of unparalleled beauty, and it would thus then last and persist in our collective conscious as much as the young man does. 
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What surely matters most though is the simple and boundless joy of this Shakespearean summer salutation: I use this sonnet regularly in my university teaching as the go to example for our need for poetry itself. Because after all: why write poetry? Why not just say what you want to say and be done with it? We write poetry because we have to. If we hadn't evolved as a species that needs to celebrate, record, solemnise, reflect on, and reflect our existence in ways that we can feel us much as, if not more than, understand, then we would not have developed poetry. The same with music, the same with art, the same with dance, the same with any cultivated form of expression that makes us what we are: human. Poetry is quintessentially human. And so of course I can say to you: "you are very beautiful and mild-mannered too, and I say you will be so forever." But although the meaning, the semantics, is there, it doesn't really mean anything and it certainly doesn't do anything. But when I say to you: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate..." you cannot help but love me just a little just for that. Just for the tingle it sends down your spine, for the rhythm and the cadence, for the gorgeousness, for the sheer pleasure, of the sound. 

In the 1989 film classic Dead Poets Society, screenwriter Tom Schulman has his boys' boarding school teacher John Keating ask his teenage charges: "Why do men write poetry?" only to answer the question himself: "to woo women!" This is undoubtedly true, and true too of men who woo other men and of women who woo women or men, or of people of any or no particular gender who want someone in the world to love them. And the poetry of these sonnets now has just shifted into this greatest of human experiences: love.

Fear not though: it will not remain here for long, it will range and expound and explore, it will bring us face to face with almost any human emotion we can remember ever feeling ourselves, but this is the real start. If you are only joining our journey now, you are not too late: you may have missed the prelude of the 17 Procreation Sonnets– which of course you can always go back to and catch up on: it's there to be listened to any time you like – but the real, the exhilarating, the profound encounter with William Shakespeare through his sonnets starts right here, right now, with Sonnet 18.

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©2022-25  |   SONNETCAST – WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS RECITED, REVEALED, RELIVED
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  • Home
  • About
  • OVERVIEW
    • Introduction
    • The Procreation Sonnets
    • Special Guest: Professor Stephen Regan – The Sonnet as a Poetic Form
    • Special Guests: Sir Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson – The Order of the Sonnets
    • The Halfway Point Summary
    • The Rival Poet
    • Special Guest: Professor Gabriel Egan – Computational Approaches to the Study of Shakespeare
    • Special Guest: Professor Abigail Rokison-Woodall – Speaking Shakespeare
    • Special Guest: Professor David Crystal – Original Pronunciation
    • The Fair Youth
  • THE SONNETS
    • Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase
    • Sonnet 2: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow
    • Sonnet 3: Look in Thy Glass and Tell the Face Thou Viewest
    • Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend
    • Sonnet 5: Those Hours That With Gentle Work Did Frame
    • Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter's Ragged Hand Deface
    • Sonnet 7: Lo! In the Orient When the Gracious Light
    • Sonnet 8: Music to Hear, Why Hearst Thou Music Sadly?
    • Sonnet 9: Is it for Fear to Wet a Widow's Eye
    • Sonnet 10: For Shame Deny That Thou Bearst Love to Any
    • Sonnet 11: As Fast as Thou Shalt Wane, So Fast Thou Growst
    • Sonnet 12: When I Do Count the Clock that Tells the Time
    • Sonnet 13: O That You Were Yourself, But Love, You Are
    • Sonnet 14: Not From the Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck
    • Sonnet 15: When I Consider Every Thing That Grows
    • Sonnet 16: But Wherefore Do Not You a Mightier Way
    • Sonnet 17: Who Will Believe My Verse in Time to Come
    • Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day
    • Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, Blunt Thou the Lion's Paws
    • Sonnet 20: A Woman's Face, With Nature's Own Hand Painted
    • Sonnet 21: So Is it Not With Me as With That Muse
    • Sonnet 22: My Glass Shall Not Persuade Me I Am Old
    • Sonnet 23: As an Unperfect Actor on the Stage
    • Sonnet 24: Mine Eye Hath Played the Painter and Hath Stelled
    • Sonnet 25: Let Those Who Are in Favour With Their Stars
    • Sonnet 26: Lord of My Love to Whom in Vassalage
    • Sonnet 27: Weary With Toil, I Haste Me to My Bed
    • Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return in Happy Plight
    • Sonnet 29: When in Disgrace With Fortune and Men's Eyes
    • Sonnet 30: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought
    • Sonnet 31: Thy Bosom Is Endeared With All Hearts
    • Sonnet 32: If Thou Survive My Well-Contented Day
    • Sonnet 33: Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen
    • Sonnet 34: Why Didst Thou Promise Such a Beauteous Day
    • Sonnet 35: No More Be Grieved at That Which Thou Hast Done
    • Sonnet 36: Let Me Confess That We Two Must Be Twain
    • Sonnet 37: As a Decrepit Father Takes Delight
    • Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject to Invent
    • Sonnet 39: O How Thy Worth With Manners May I Sing
    • Sonnet 40: Take All My Loves, My Love, Yea Take Them All
    • Sonnet 41: Those Pretty Wrongs That Liberty Commits
    • Sonnet 42: That Thou Hast Her, it Is Not All My Grief
    • Sonnet 43: When Most I Wink, Then Do Mine Eyes Best See
    • Sonnet 44: If the Dull Substance of My Flesh Were Thought
    • Sonnet 45: The Other Two, Slight Air and Purging Fire
    • Sonnet 46: Mine Eye and Heart Are at a Mortal War
    • Sonnet 47: Betwixt Mine Eye and Heart a League Is Took
    • Sonnet 48: How Careful Was I When I Took My Way
    • Sonnet 49: Against That Time, if Ever That Time Come
    • Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey on the Way
    • Sonnet 51: Thus Can My Love Excuse the Slow Offence
    • Sonnet 52: So Am I as the Rich, Whose Blessed Key
    • Sonnet 53: What Is Your Substance, Whereof Are You Made
    • Sonnet 54: O How Much More Doth Beauty Beauteous Seem
    • Sonnet 55: Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments
    • Sonnet 56: Sweet Love, Renew Thy Force, Be it Not Said
    • Sonnet 57: Being Your Slave, What Should I Do But Tend
    • Sonnet 58: That God Forbid That Made Me First Your Slave
    • Sonnet 59: If There Be Nothing New, But That Which Is
    • Sonnet 60: Like as the Waves Make Towards the Pebbled Shore
    • Sonnet 61: Is it Thy Will Thy Image Should Keep Open
    • Sonnet 62: Sin of Self-Love Possesseth All Mine Eye
    • Sonnet 63: Against My Love Shall Be as I Am Now
    • Sonnet 64: When I have Seen by Time's Fell Hand Defaced
    • Sonnet 65: Since Brass, Nor Stone, Nor Earth, Nor Boundless Sea
    • Sonnet 66: Tired With All These, for Restful Death I Cry
    • Sonnet 67: Ah, Wherefore With Infection Should He Live
    • Sonnet 68: Thus Is His Cheek the Map of Days Outworn
    • Sonnet 69: Those Parts of Thee That The World's Eye Doth View
    • Sonnet 70: That Thou Are Blamed Shall Not Be Thy Defect
    • Sonnet 71: No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead
    • Sonnet 72: O Lest the World Should Task You to Recite
    • Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold
    • Sonnet 74: But Be Contented When That Fell Arrest
    • Sonnet 75: So Are You to My Thoughts as Food to Life
    • Sonnet 76: Why Is My Verse so Barren of New Pride
    • Sonnet 77: Thy Glass Will Show Thee How Thy Beauties Wear
    • Sonnet 78: So Oft Have I Invoked Thee for My Muse
    • Sonnet 79: Whilst I Alone Did Call Upon Thy Aid
    • Sonnet 80: O How I Faint When I of You Do Write
    • Sonnet 81: Or I Shall Live Your Epitaph to Make
    • Sonnet 82: I Grant Thou Wert Not Married to My Muse
    • Sonnet 83: I Never Saw That You Did Painting Need
    • Sonnet 84: Who Is it That Says Most, Which Can Say More
    • Sonnet 85: My Tongue-Tied Muse in Manners Holds Her Still
    • Sonnet 86: Was it the Proud Full Sail of His Great Verse
    • Sonnet 87: Farewell, Thou Art Too Dear for My Posessing
    • Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Disposed to Set Me Light
    • Sonnet 89: Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me for Some Fault
    • Sonnet 90: Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt, if Ever, Now
    • Sonnet 91: Some Glory in Their Birth, Some in Their Skill
    • Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst to Steal Thyself Away
    • Sonnet 93: So Shall I Live, Supposing Thou Art True
    • Sonnet 94: They That Have Power to Hurt and Will Do None
    • Sonnet 95: How Sweet and Lovely Dost Thou Make the Shame
    • Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness
    • Sonnet 97: How Like a Winter Hath my Absence Been
    • Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring
    • Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide
    • Sonnet 100: Where Art Thou, Muse, That Thou Forgetst so Long
    • Sonnet 101: O Truant Muse, What Shall Be Thy Amends
    • Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthened Though More Weak in Seeming
    • Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth
    • Sonnet 104: To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old
    • Sonnet 105: Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry
    • Sonnet 106: When in the Chronicle of Wasted Time
    • Sonnet 107: Not Mine Own Fears Nor the Prophetic Soul
    • Sonnet 108: What's in the Brain That Ink May Character
    • Sonnet 109: O Never Say That I Was False of Heart
    • Sonnet 110: Alas, 'Tis True I Have Gone Here and There
    • Sonnet 111: O For My Sake Do You With Fortune Chide
    • Sonnet 112: Your Love and Pity Doth Th'Impression Fill
    • Sonnet 113: Since I Left You, Mine Eye Is in My Mind
    • Sonnet 114: Or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned With You
    • Sonnet 115: Those Lines That I Before Have Writ Do Lie
    • Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
    • Sonnet 117: Accuse Me Thus, That I Have Scanted All
    • Sonnet 118: Like as to Make Our Appetites More Keen
    • Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk of Siren Tears
    • Sonnet 120: That You Were Once Unkind Befriends Me Now
    • Sonnet 121: Tis Better to Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed
    • Sonnet 122: Thy Gift, Thy Tables, Are Within My Brain
    • Sonnet 123: No! Time, Thou Shalt Not Boast That I Do Change
    • Sonnet 124: If My Dear Love Were But the Child of State
    • Sonnet 125: Were't Ought to Me I Bore the Canopy
    • Sonnet 126: O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who in Thy Power
    • Sonnet 127: In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair
    • Sonnet 128: How Oft When Thou, My Music, Music Playst
    • Sonnet 129: Th'Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame
    • Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
    • Sonnet 131: Thou Art as Tyrannous, so as Thou Art
    • Sonnet 132: Thine Eyes I love, and They, as Pitying Me
    • Sonnet 133: Beshrew That Heart That Makes My Heart to Groan
    • Sonnet 134: So Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine
    • Sonnet 135: Whoever Hath Her Wish, Thou Hast Thy Will
    • Sonnet 136: If Thy Soul Check Thee That I Come so Near
    • Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool Love, What Dost Thou to Mine Eyes
    • Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth
    • Sonnet 139: O Call Not Me to Justify the Wrong
    • Sonnet 140: Be Wise as Thou Art Cruel, Do Not Press
    • Sonnet 141: In Faith, I Do Not Love Thee With Mine Eyes
    • Sonnet 142: Love Is My Sin, and Thy Dear Virtue Hate
    • Sonnet 143: Lo! As a Careful Housewife Runs to Catch
    • Sonnet 144: Two Loves I Have of Comfort and Despair
    • Sonnet 145: Those Lips That Love's Own Hand Did Make
    • Sonnet 146: Poor Soul, the Centre of My Sinful Earth
    • Sonnet 147: My Love Is as a Fever, Longing Still
    • Sonnet 148: O Me! What Eyes Hath Love Put in My Head
    • Sonnet 149: Canst Thou, O Cruel, Say I Love Thee Not
    • Sonnet 150: O From What Power Hast Thou This Powerful Might
    • Sonnet 151: Love Is too Young to Know What Conscience Is
    • Sonnet 152: In Loving Thee Thou Knowst I Am Forsworn
    • Sonnet 153: Cupid Laid by His Brand and Fell Asleep
    • Sonnet 154: The Little Love-God, Lying Once Asleep
  • THE SONNETEER
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