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
  • THE SONNETEER
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Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject to Invent

How can my Muse want subject to invent
While thou dost breathe that pourst into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse:
O give thyself the thanks if ought in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
       If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
​       The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
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LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 38

​How can my Muse want subject to invent
How can I lack inspiration to compose poetry to you...

'Muse' is the ability to create, originally both through inspiration and also through skill or technique, though today we use it mainly in the former sense. It stems of course from the nine Muses, which are referenced later in the poem, who in Greek mythology are the goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. 

The use of the verb 'invent' is telling: in ancient rhetoric, 'invention' from Latin inventio refers the construction of an argument and has less to do with making things up than finding good, valid evidence or ​topics to support one's contention. The fact that Shakespeare knows and applies this vocabulary here in its technical sense points to his classical education back in Stratford.
​While thou dost breathe that pourst into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
​For every vulgar paper to rehearse:
...while you live and by your presence on this planet and in my life pour into my verse your very own argument, which is too excellent – for which read 'exquisite' as well as 'perfectly constructed': both qualities you yourself are eminently noted for – than that just any ordinary piece of paper could or should regurgitate it.

The terminology from classical rhetoric continues: the young man by his mere presence provides the argument a rhetorician, such as a poet, needs, and it is an 'excellent' argument, meaning that it stands up to scrutiny: it is well composed, it pleases the mind and the ear and the eye. 

Fascinating is the assertion that this argument is not only outstandingly good but too good for any 'vulgar paper' to rehearse'. 'Vulgar' here as elsewhere in Shakespeare mostly simply means 'ordinary' or 'base', but what is of interest is that he appears to be suggesting that other, less skilled and therefore by implication less deserving poets or scribes might feel tempted to eulogise the young man or have already done so. This is a theme that will come to the fore in a while with the 'Rival Poet' sequence that is generally accepted to encompass Sonnets 78 to 86, but it has been foreshadowed tentatively once before, in Sonnet 21. 
O give thyself the thanks if ought in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,

O, thank yourself if anything that I have to offer is worth looking at and comes before your eyes and also, more to the point, stands up to your close inspection or scrutiny, in other words, meets with your approval...
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee
​When thou thyself dost give invention light?
Because who is so dull or inarticulate that they are unable to write to you, when you yourself give such inspiration to the composition of a rhetorical piece, such as a clearly structured poem?

'Dumb' to mean 'stupid' is an Americanism that does not directly apply here, though implied in this inarticulacy and dullness is of course also a lack of intellectual acuity.
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
​Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,

May you be the tenth Muse, and as the tenth one also ten times more in worth – meaning more powerful, stronger, more worthy – than the classical nine Muses which poets invoke when they write their poetry.

In the ancient tradition, a poet would call on their Muse to inspire, aid and guide them, so they may be able to produce a truthful poem that pleases the ear and conveys the story they have to tell with lasting power. Homer, for example, starts his Illiad with a direct address to the Muse:

Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
[...]
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon, lord of men, and brilliant Achilles.


But William Shakespeare – as he already hinted at with 'every vulgar paper' does not have the great poets of antiquity, or indeed substantial contemporaries of his in mind: calling the people he is referring to 'rhymers' is deliberately deprecatory. A 'rhymer' to a 'poet' might be approximately as a 'scribbler' to a 'writer' or a 'fiddler' to a 'violinist'. 

ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION:
Note that in OP 
worth rhymes with ​forth.
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

And any such 'rhymer', let him – as it would at the time in the vast majority of cases be and as Shakespeare clearly assumes – produce endless streams of poetry that will last beyond the end of time. 

We have seen 'date' to mean 'final date' or 'expiry date' before and here the 'long date' is, by implication, the longest date of expiry imaginable, in other words, the end of time. 

This of course references directly the instances in which I, the poet, have predicted that my poetry to you will live forever and in doing so give life to you, such as, most prominently, in Sonnet 18:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
​So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
       If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
​       The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

And Shakespeare ends with a hint of possibly, if not false then self-effacing, modesty in stark contrast to such earlier instances as Sonnet 18:

If my inconsiderable, inconsequential poetry – Muse here stands for the product that the Muse has inspired – should please these days that are so notoriously difficult to please, then the effort to do so shall be mine, but the praise that may result from it entirely goes to you.

'Curious' arrives in Middle English from Latin 'curiosus', meaning 'careful', from 'cura', 'care', and here has this connotation not so much of 'strange' or 'unusual' as we would also define it, but of 'fastidious', 'highly critical', and therefore by extension 'hard to please'. Its use here seems to point in a slightly clandestine way at Shakespeare feeling un- or under-appreciated for his poetry, which again would tie in with his perception of himself as being "made lame by" – in Sonnet 37 – and, in Sonnet 29, "in disgrace with" Fortune, and indeed 'mens' eyes', such as his 'peers', some of whom, as we noted when looking at Sonnet 25, actively and publicly disparage him.

With his remarkably deadpan Sonnet 38, William Shakespeare changes tone completely and positions his own poetry as the product of the man who has so long now been his Muse. Like Sonnet 37, it does not obviously fit into the sequence, but like Sonnet 37, it still clearly speaks to the same young man and also like Sonnet 37, it references topics that have been expressed earlier in the series: in this case the particular relationship that exists between a poet and the person he is inspired by to write poetry for, something that has been addressed as early as Sonnet 21, where Shakespeare compared himself favourably to the kind of poet who sings his love's praises in unsubstantiated hyperbole.

Like Sonnet 37, Sonnet 38 does not so much reveal new insights to us as help us gain greater certainty about things that we have to continue to consider conjecture, since there can be no proof of anything other than of the existence of the words themselves. And, taking as read the young man's many exquisite qualities, the two elements that we can in this vein focus on are these:

There appears to be, not for the first time but more acutely felt than before, an awareness of other poets. This need hardly surprise us, since Shakespearean England is a land of poetry where the English language as we recognise it today for the first time really comes into its own and where poets can attain what today we might feel tempted to call – somewhat inadequately – 'celebrity' status. We know for as certain as we can know anything – not least from the previous Sonnet 37 – that by this time Shakespeare enjoys anything but that kind of status, and so it is especially interesting to hear here a tone creep in of borderline disdain towards other poets. As noted above and once before when this was the case in Sonnet 21, this is unlikely to be one specific 'rival poet' such as will make his presence felt later in the series, but when you hear a poet ask the question, "For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee," then even allowing for the fact that 'dumb' in the American sense of 'stupid' is not yet in circulation – not least because the first permanent English settlement in America was not founded until about a decade later, in 1607, in Jamestown, Virginia – we may be forgiven for detecting a note of condescension. In this, too, the sonnet echoes Sonnet 21, where the kind of poet there described is himself called a 'Muse' who is "stirred by a painted beauty to his verse," and we noted there what Shakespeare thinks of 'painted beauties', and so need not do so again here now.

The other element that comes through once more in Sonnet 38 is that Shakespeare either genuinely or rather more likely somewhat disingenuously disparages or at any rate diminishes his own poetry, calling it here "my slight Muse." We know that Shakespeare does not always and therefore probably not really think of his poetry as slight. There are several instances – some already mentioned, others yet to appear – when he has made it clear before and when he will make it clear again that his poetry is potent and has the power to bestow life and reality on the young man until long after either man's death and for many generations yet to come. So the slightly peeved tone that we seem to perceive here must stem from something else, and the obvious cause for it is other people's appraisal of his poetry. 

Shakespeare – rather uncharacteristically, one might feel tempted to say, though that would be simplifying and reducing him to a less complex character than he clearly is – here comes across as borderline passive-aggressive: oh don't mind me and my little poems that I scribble: they are but a trifle of no import at all. Evidently not the case. 

When we said about Sonnet 37 that in several places it tallies with what we think we know of William Shakespeare and his young man, then, similarly, Sonnet 38 tallies with what we think we can know about Shakespeare and the world of poets he is both a part of and yet not part of enough to feel he belongs there. This is of great significance in itself, because he is after all a poet trying to make it in London: the capital city of a fast growing culture and language. And interesting in this context is his use of the word 'Muse': it appears three times. First, to mean 'artistic capacity' or 'inspiration', and is deployed to ask the rhetorical question, how can this be in need of a subject to create my rhetorical argument in poetry. Second, to mean 'god or goddess of artistry', as in the nine classical Muses, deployed to assign a role to the young man himself: the source of inspiration and subject of the rhetorical invention rolled into one. Third, to mean 'the product of my art', deployed to describe the poetry itself.

If, as we have reason to believe and as current scholarly opinion holds, Sonnet 38 is part of the larger group of sonnets that was composed in the mid 1590s, then this adds a poignant perspective, because in 1593 and 1594, William Shakespeare dedicates two long narrative poems to the young Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, who is then in his very early twenties, in fact he turns 20 in 1593, and as we know, Henry Wriothesley is one of our chief candidates for the young man of these sonnets. Dedicating a piece of poetry to a rich patron is nothing at all unusual in Elizabethan England, but the dedication that William Shakespeare writes to Henry Wriothesley for the second of the two poems is somewhat out of the ordinary:

"To the Right Honourable Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.


Your lordship's in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE"


Again, it is meet and proper to point out that gushing dedications are at the time par for the course, and so even though this one sits right up there in the higher echelons of effusiveness, it still has to be read against the backdrop of a culture that is much more deferential and therefore more, and differently, verbose than ours.

All that said, it is worth bearing this dimension in mind: whether or not Henry Wriothesley is the Fair Youth, he is manifestly a young man whom Shakespeare has or wants to have a professional relationship with, in the sense that he has or wants his patronage. This is nothing at all untoward or unusual: it is one of few ways – the other principal one being the sale of published print – in which a poet can make a living. But it puts into focus this existential need a poet such as William Shakespeare has: for him writing poetry is not 'just' a pouring out of emotion, not 'just' a means of communicating love and desire, or passion and frustration, or anger and despair, it is not 'just' a way of passing long hours away from love or from home: it is a way of earning money and it is a way of establishing a reputation and a standing in the world.

If, all that said and all this considered, the young, insanely wealthy, stubbornly single, and arrestingly beautiful Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton and Baron of Titchfield is also the lover of Shakespeare and subject, addressee, and muse of these sonnets, then Sonnet 38 acquires a whole new level of complexity, because then – although we don't know the exact sequence of events – the loves and the labours, and indeed the labours of love of William Shakespeare are truly and quite inseparably entwined, though fortunately, they are not, and not for quite some time yet, and in a sense, through and because of this timeless poetry, never shall be, truly lost.

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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
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