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
    • SUBSCRIBE

Sonnet 33: Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendour on my brow,
But out, alack, he was but one hour mine:
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.
       Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth:
       Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
Picture

​<

​>

Picture
LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 33

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
​​Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye

I have seen a great many mornings when the sun's rays caress the mountain tops...

The 'sovereign eye', like 'the eye of heaven' in Sonnet 18, is the sun, with which the morning 'flatters' the mountain tops. 'Flatter' does have the same meaning in Shakespeare as it does for us, and because the sovereign – the king or the queen – is the highest individual there is in a monarchy, everyone they look at benignly is in a sense being flattered. So when the morning looks on the world with the sun, its heavenly eye, it does flatter the world, by making it appear and feel better than it really is or certainly than it would without this light and warmth coming to it.

Here though, as elsewhere in Shakespeare, the word also means to stroke or to caress, as the sun metaphorically does the peaks with its rays in the early morning when it first rises.

​'Full many' meanwhile, has the same meaning as what we would call 'a great many' or simply 'very many'.
​Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
...and with its golden face kiss the green meadows...

The idyll of the sun gently greeting the pastoral landscape continues: the 'golden face' similarly echoes Sonnet 18, where the personified sun had a 'gold complexion'.
​Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,
...and with its heavenly alchemy turn pale streams into gold: the light of the sun lends the water of the streams, which in the twilight looked silvery pale, a golden shimmer and sheen.

Alchemy is the mediaeval practice of trying to turn base metals into gold and in the era before Newton and what we would consider modern science occupies a mystical place between magic, experimentation, and early chemistry. Here it is heavenly because the sun is of the heaven and therefore possesses its own, quasi-divine, sovereign power to achieve this wonder of the morning.

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that
heavenly is here pronounced with two syllables: ​[hean-ly].

ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION:
Note that in OP 
alchemy rhymes with eye above.
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face

And soon after this has happened, I have then seen the same morning allow a line of ugly clouds of the lowest order to ride on his heavenly face.

The weather is turning. After the glorious sunshine of the early hours of the morning, an unseemly procession of clouds comes along, and the morning, which just a short while ago was flattering the world with his sovereign eye, is now allowing that same face – the sun – to be besmeared by clouds.

The use of the word 'basest' is not coincidental: it contrasts the status of these clouds as low and vulgar compared to the exalted sovereignty of the sun, and it also references the 'base metals' that the alchemist would aim to turn into gold.
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
​Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.

And these clouds thus hide the face of the sun from the abandoned, lost world, as it steals away to the west where it sets, carrying this disgrace with it.

'Disgrace' is a particularly strong term which carries with it moral connotations, and these will shortly become clear. If Shakespeare were only talking about the weather here, then it would be startling to find him so judgmental about a purely natural phenomenon, but:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
​With all triumphant splendour on my brow,

In just the same way, my sun – which we can guess and learn in a moment is my young lover – one fine morning did shine for me...

The young man is here compared to the sun who, in his "triumphant splendour," meaning his glorious, bright shining beauty and apparel, turns my day into a golden wonder. And this is a third echo of when it all started so joyously with Sonnet 18, where I asked him: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" There I told the young man that he was "more lovely, and more temperate," here, not so much...

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that even is here pronounced with one syllable: ​[een]. 
But out, alack, he was but one hour mine:
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

But – alas! – this glorious sunshine lasted only a short while and the clouds of the upper regions of the sky have now obscured him from my view.

Just as with the sun in the sky when it is covered by clouds, and the day turns from warm, bright and happy to grey, cold and drab, so this sun of a man that briefly shone on me is now hidden behind ugly clouds.

The 'out, alack' is not as tricky as we might feel inclined to make it: it's simply an expression of woe, just like alas! Debates happen over how to punctuate this, and a good argument can be made for leaving the whole expression 'but out alack' stand as one, the way the Quarto Edition does.
       Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth:
       Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

And yet, the love that I bear for him is in no way diminished, I do not like or esteem him any less for this, because if the sun in the sky can be blemished, as it so often is, without us thinking less of it, then so can the suns of the world: great people like my young lover. 

The comparison of the young man to the sun is drawn to a logical conclusion: the sun is the sun and always will be: it is the source of all our energy and it commands the sky. The fact that now and then it is obscured from us and seems tainted by some mean clouds does not take away from its absolute sovereignty. And the same applies to my young man: he is, in a sense, beyond reproach, if nothing else for his unimpeachable status.

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that 
heaven is here pronounced with one syllable: [​hean].

With Sonnet 33 a new phase begins in the relationship between William Shakespeare and the young man. The storm clouds that gather in this poem are a direct and intentional metaphor for the turbulence the two face, as the young man has clearly gone and done something to upset his loving poet. What exactly this is, the sonnet doesn't tell us, but it is obvious that Shakespeare is hurt and disappointed, whilst trying to rationalise the young man's behaviour in a way that makes some sort of sense to him.

This sonnet is striking and most revealing for a whole raft of reasons. The first thing that catches our attention and that can hardly be a coincidence is the way it references – echoes even – Sonnet 18. Sonnet 18 may or may not mark the beginning of the 'relationship proper', so to speak, between Shakespeare and the young man, but it certainly stands at the point in the published sequence where the relationship shifts from being mostly transactional and almost exclusively concerned with the young man's procreation, to one of undisguised adoration. The fact that this sonnet in at least three instances that we noted directly picks up on themes that strongly feature there does not prove anything, but it strongly suggests that our contention is right that all these sonnets so far are addressed to the same young man and that at this juncture, where the glorious warmth and sunshine of a metaphorical summer day is being ruined by ugly clouds, I, the poet, either consciously or subconsciously hark back to when everything seemed like it could be or become all but perfect.

The second aspect that stands out here is the positioning of the young man in relation to William Shakespeare. We have, in our journey thus far, observed that the young man whom all of these sonnets appear to be about must be of a high social status. Everything we have seen and heard suggests as much, nothing has come up that allows us to think otherwise. Sonnet 33 strongly supports this contention. Of course, it is entirely possible for a person who is in love to liken their lover to a sun: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey," the charming ditty goes, and we are hardly pushed to think of this 'sunshine' as necessarily a person of high social status.

But William Shakespeare – unlike Oliver Hood who is believed to have written that song in the 1930s – was composing his verses in the 1590s at a time when English society was wholly defined by class and where being a member of the aristocracy carried with it untold privileges as much as quite extraordinarily far-reaching obligations. Which is why Shakespeare linking this sun in his life to sovereignty is so significant: the sun of the sky is described as the 'sovereign eye' and this exalted state is being disgraced – not just tarnished or simply obscured, but morally devalued – by the clouds that come in front of it. The young man is described as the sun who appears in 'triumphant splendour' and then similarly is masked by metaphorical clouds. And while we don't know who this man is for certain, we do know that soon Shakespeare will address him as "lascivious grace," and 'Your Grace' – today used at the level of a Duchess or a Duke – in Shakespeare's day is a form of address that could be appropriate also for an Earl. So the suggestion made by the poem that this sun has, in the eyes of the poet, allowed himself to be thus 'dis-graced', is far-reaching and profound.

That these 'clouds' therefore are no trivial matter will become crystal clear in the ensuing sonnets, but what happens next in this sonnet is almost startling and amounts to the third element that immediately strikes us as noteworthy:

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth:
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.


Shakespeare does the poetic equivalent of a handbrake turn. This poem could have gone all manner of ways: a plea for the young man to make fair weather return, a throwing in of the towel in despair, a moral finding on the fickleness of love...  What he actually does is absolve the young man of any wrongdoing, not by saying he didn't do it, but by saying: that's his prerogative. After all, he is the sun in my life: he is up there and I am down here. He is sovereign; who am I to lament the clouds: he is and always will be the sun.

This does several things all at once: it puts the poet in place, it relativises the accusation such as it is, it amounts to more or less the equivalent of someone saying to their partner: I realise you cannot commit. To invoke another fine tune of the twentieth century: it's a bit like Shakespeare saying to his young man: "You don't have to say you love me, just be close at hand / You don't have to stay forever, I will understand: / Believe me, believe me, I can't help but love you / But believe me, I will never tie you down..." as Dusty Springfield so heartrendingly sang in the lyric written for her by Vicki Wickham and Simon Napier-Bell.

Whether we can take Shakespeare entirely at face value and believe he absolutely means what he is saying, that is another question, and not one that this sonnet can answer. Luckily, though, it doesn't have to.

Because although Sonnet 33 can absolutely stand on its own and does not in that sense form an inseparable pair as some others have done, it is strongly tied into the sonnet that immediately follows, Sonnet 34, and that in turn directly leads to the next one, Sonnet 35. The three of them could therefore be seen as the first 'triptych' in the series that thematically and sequentially link into each other almost, but not quite, to the point where they could be seen as one unit. There then follows a short sequence which talks about several other things, but mostly the young man's great worth, before, with Sonnets 40 and 41, we get the clear explanation of what has actually happened. It therefore makes sense, rather than to speculate about what brings on all this bad weather, to simply take it one step at a time and see how this all unfolds. It unfolds in two dramatic waves and results in a – even by our standards – astoundingly frank and exceptionally open-minded assessment of an effectively post-modern constellation of the kind you might see discussed on any contemporary reality TV show...

​<

​>

This project and its website are a work in progress.
If you spot a mistake or if you have any comments or suggestions, please use the contact page to get in touch.
​To be kept informed of developments, please subscribe to the email list.
If you would like to donate, you can do so here. Thank you!
​​

©2022-25  |   SONNETCAST – WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS RECITED, REVEALED, RELIVED
​
  • 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
    • SUBSCRIBE