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
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Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return in Happy Plight

How can I then return in happy plight,
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day's oppression is not eased by night, 
But day by night, and night by day oppressed,
And each, though enemies to either's reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me:
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day to please him: 'thou art bright,
And dost him grace', when clouds do blot the heaven;
So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,
When sparkling stars twire not: 'thou gildst the even'.
       But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
       And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.
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LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 28

How can I then return in happy plight
​That am debarred the benefit of rest?

The sonnet continues from Sonnet 27 and asks: everything said there – with my body being worn out during the day and my mind kept reeling during the night – how can I then return from my bed and start a new day in a  happy disposition, when I am so denied the benefit of rest?

'Plight' here has a meaning of 'state' or 'condition' quite generally, rather than, as we would use it today, one of a dangerous or difficult situation, although the juxtaposition of 'happy' with 'plight', knowing Shakespeare, may well be deliberate.
When day's oppression is not eased by night
​But day by night and night by day oppressed,
When it is the case that the strains that are put on me during the day are not eased by a good night's sleep, but in fact I am further weighed down by the agitation of my mind during the night, and then the next day, work and travel continues, adding further to my weariness.

The day is 'oppressed' by night, because night does not offer any relief for the exertions of the daytime, and night is 'oppressed' by day, because the day of course similarly does not offer any respite from the restlessness of the night.
And each, though enemies to either's reign
​Do in consent shake hands to torture me:

And although day and night are opposites which cannot coexist at the same time but have to fight each other for dominance, one following the other in an eternal cycle, they shake hands in agreement on a pact to torture me:...
The one by toil, the other to complain
​How far I toil, still farther off from thee.

...one of them – day – tortures me with the 'toil', for which here again clearly read exhausting travel as much as the work that goes with the travel or that the travel is for, the other – night – tortures me by giving me time to reflect and therefore bemoan or complain to myself about how far away I travel from you, and the longer this goes on the further away I find myself from you.
I tell the Day to please him: 'thou art bright
And dost him grace,' when clouds to blot the heaven;
This third quatrain offers two quite categorically different interpretations. What is clear is that the Day here and then in the following two lines the Night are both personified and addressed by me, the poet, as if they were people.

Most editors assume that I, the poet, talk to first Day and then to Night about the young man. If that is the case, then here I am saying to the Day: you, my young lover, are metaphorically bright, because you are beautiful, and you, with your beauty, grace the day, even when the sun isn't shining, but clouds are in the sky. And I do this to please the day, meaning to make the day more pleasant and thus more bearable to me.

To the same effect – to please the Day, and thus make it more bearable to me –  the line can also be read as direct speech addressing Day itself: I say to the Day: you, the day, are bright and you do him, my lover, grace, meaning you, with your beauty, remind me of him and honour him, and I say this to you even when you, the day, are not in fact bright, but are clouded over with bad weather.

Some editors go as far as suggesting that the 'to please him' belongs to what you, my lover do, reading the line as: I tell the Day that you, in order to please him, the day, are bright and do him grace, even when clouds darken the sky.

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that here we have a choice of pronouncing heaven either as two syllables, hea-ven, resulting in a feminine line ending, or as one syllable, ​hea'n, resulting in a masculine line ending. The same will then simply have to be applied to the rhyming even below.
So flatter I the swart-complexioned Night
When sparkling stars twire not: 'Thou gildst the even.'
In the same way I also flatter the black Night – 'swart-comlexioned' means having a black complexion – that you gild and therefore beautify and grace the evening, even when there are no stars in the sky.

Similarly, the line can be read in two ways. Either as I, the poet, saying to the Night: you, my lover, make the evening golden, even when there are no stars in the sky because the night sky is overcast, or as, I, the poet saying to the Night, you, the Night, make the evening golden for me even when there are no stars in the sky.

What slightly favours the latter – though it has to be said less common – interpretation, the one where I, the poet, talk to first Day and then Night, addressing them directly, are the two qualifying statements 'to please him' for the Day and 'flatter' for the Night. It would seem a more obvious way of flattering someone to compliment them directly rather than by saying to them that somebody else is gilding them. But this is far from conclusive. And in Sonnet 27, which this clearly and unmistakably follows on from, I compared the young man to a jewel that can make the dark night beautiful, so drawing a firm conclusion is virtually impossible. And a few sonnets back, in Sonnet 20 I told the young man that he is 'gilding the object' whereupon his eye gazes.

Here as elsewhere we may have to entertain the possibility that Shakespeare is aware of the double meaning and delights in his own dexterity to give us a deliberately ambiguous quatrain, but the sense we get remains largely the same: I try to put on a brave face and make my day and my night bearable by reminding myself of how beautiful you are.

PRONUNCIATION:
See note above on 
​heaven.
​       But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
But every day draws out my sorrow for being away from you and also, as I said just a little earlier, every day takes me geographically further away from you and thus puts a greater distance and therefore a longer road home between us... 
       And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.
...and every night deepens my grief for being away from you.

It is tempting here to emend the Quarto Edition's 'length' for 'strength' and make the line read:

And night doth nightly make grief's strength seem stronger.

But even if that should appeal, it isn't strictly necessary for the line to make sense, and as some editors point out, the focus on both distance and duration that 'length' offers is possibly more elegant than reinforcing 'strength' with 'stronger'. 

In any case though, my approach is to go by the words that we have and while we must allow for the possibility of some mistakes having crept in – and in some cases these are so obvious that, as we have seen, they have to be emended – doing so absolutely needs to be a last resort. For the most part and wherever possible, the assumption surely has to be that Shakespeare knew what he was doing and that we do not need to 'improve' on his writing...

Sonnet 28 continues on from Sonnet 27 and develops the thought further, elaborating on the ways day and night appear to conspire to make William Shakespeare's struggling life a misery as he travels, away from his young lover. While it thus does not tell us anything that is in that sense new, it produces a layered internal dialogue that gives us a great sense of the poet's state of mind and disposition of heart.

To fully get this sense of absence, longing, and growing unease of lingering despair, the two poems of course have to be taken together:

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired,
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind when body's work's expired,
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see,
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
       Lo, thus by day my limbs, by night my mind
       For thee and for myself no quiet find.

How can I then return in happy plight,
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day's oppression is not eased by night, 
But day by night, and night by day oppressed,
And each, though enemies to either's reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me:
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day to please him: 'thou art bright,
And dost him grace', when clouds do blot the heaven;
So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,
When sparkling stars twire not: 'thou gildst the even'.
       But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
       And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.

It could be argued, perhaps, that these two sonnets are among the least spectacular ones we have met so far. And certainly, there is a subdued weariness, yes, but also an underlying anguish that seems to seep through. Only four lines in Sonnet 27 concern themselves with the young man and there make a gentle, understated simile with a jewel that endows a dark and gloomy night with new beauty. And it is this same sense of light that is then picked up in Sonnet 28, where the melancholy grey of a cloudy day and the pervasive umbra of a starless night are lifted somewhat – but only somewhat – by being able to talk about the love who is left behind. And here, as we have seen, it isn't even entirely clear who is doing what to whom: am I trying to please the day and flattering the night by telling them things they are not, namely bright and gilding the evening, and you, the young man who is not here with me, are really principally the reason for my need to attempt to cheer myself up in this way? Or am I doing the same – trying to please the day and flatter the night – by talking about you.

Maybe the greatest insight we glean from these two sonnets then is not so much in the words and their direct or indirect meaning, but in this ambiguity and the lacklustre spirit they convey. If you have ever been tired, worn out, underpowered, away from home, and all the while missing someone badly, the tone and atmosphere of Sonnets 27 and 28, but particularly of Sonnet 28, will be all too familiar. It is, what in today's language we – perhaps a bit lazily and as an at times inappropriate shorthand – call being 'depressed'. Certainly, these two poems do not burst with any joy, or energy, or drive, or even, for that matter, great emotional gushing of love. They are subdued, somewhat diffuse so as not to say muddled, and they cling on to the thought and the image of the young man but barely seem to succeed. They are written in a frame of mind that is utterly low. Hearing these sonnets, we want to give our Will a big hug and say, chin up, this too shall pass. And it does. But not before William Shakespeare finds fresh form and funnels his despair into one of the most triumphant compositions in the canon: Sonnet 29...
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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
  • THE SONNETEER
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