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 40: Take All My Loves, My Love, Yea, Take Them All

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all.
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call:
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
       Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
       Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.
Picture

​​<

​>

Picture
LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 40

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all.
You, who are my love, take all the people I love, yes, take them all.

The sense implied is, of course, a sexual one, as well as one of appropriation: by 'having' this person who is my love, you, who are also my love, effectively take them away from me.
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
When you have taken all the people I love, what more do you then have than you had before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call:
​All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Certainly not a love that you can call a true love:
everything that belongs to me was already yours, before you took this additional thing from me. And since I am your true love and everything that is mine is already yours, anything you take from me as if it were not already yours cannot be a true love.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
There are three possible ways of reading this, which is probably absolutely intentional:

1 - Then if, out of love for me, you receive – as in take, and have, but it is a receiving because it really is already yours, since all that is mine is yours – this person whom I love...

2 – Then if, in the place of my love, as in: this person whom you take from me is a substitute for me...

​3 – Then if, to make me love you even more, you do this, as in for the purpose of obtaining yet more of my love...
​I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest.
...​then I can't blame you for using my love in this way. And here too, there is an obviously intentional double meaning: you use my love – my emotion by state of loving you – to justify your actions, but you also use, as in have sexual relations with, this other person whom I love. 
But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest
And yet, having said all that, you do have to take some blame if you deceive on the one hand this self that is me, on the other hand this self that is made up of the two of us, and therefore by deduction this self that is also you.

Many editors emend the Quarto Edition's 'this self' to the more obvious 'thyself', which makes perfect sense, but seems unnecessary and also takes away this multiple layering that Shakespeare may very well have intended.
​By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
...by wilfully tasting – as in sampling, consuming, even experimenting with – that which you yourself actually normally refuse.

The sexual-sensual current continues, and is reinforced with the word 'wilful' which in itself carries a strong connotation of deliberate lustfulness, and may also on top of that be yet another fully intended pun on both Will's name and the male sexual organ.

The 'refusest', meanwhile is often read as mostly meaning to suggest that the young man scorns at people who have these kinds of sexual affairs, but given the young man's history of refusing women whom he is meant to marry, it seems signally more obvious and more likely that Shakespeare is referring directly to the young man's refusal of women quite generally so far, except now, with this love of his, Shakespeare's, whom the young man clearly has had a wilful 'taste' of.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

I forgive you your robbery, gentle thief, even if you steal everything from me, which, being but a poor poet, is not much, and certainly, by implication, way less than you have.
And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
​To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
And yet, love knows – which is similar to God knows, but gives us one more opportunity to use the word 'love', which is clearly central to this entire poem – it is worse and causes more upset and grief having to bear the wrongs committed by a lover or someone whom you love than to suffer the familiar and therefore known injuries caused by someone of whom you know that they hate you.
       Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
You, who are both lustful, and wanton, and in the juice of your youth, and who are graceful and young, but also, on account of your nobility, entitled to be addressed as Grace; you, in whom everything looks good, even the bad things you do – 'all ill' is everything that is untoward, not right, awry or amiss, and even all of that shows well in you, meaning that you make it look good – ...

'Lascivious', as John Kerrigan points out, is less judgmental and damning than we might usually interpret here today.
       Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.
Kill me with your misdeeds, your vexations, your malicious actions, but we must not be enemies.

With his forcefully forgiving Sonnet 40, William Shakespeare finally connects us right back to Sonnet 35 and sets out on a short sequence which explains with startling frankness what has happened and what should now, and, more to the point, should not now be the consequence of this. That Shakespeare feels desolate about his lover's 'ill deeds' is beyond doubt, as is the fact that this sonnet goes straight to the heart of the matter: love. This poet, who has the greatest vocabulary of any writer in the English language if not ever then certainly up until then uses the word 'love' ten times here – more often than in any other sonnet – to mean either the emotion itself or whoever may be this other person or indeed these other people whom he directs this emotion towards in a relationship that has suddenly become at the very least triangular in the most spectacular fashion.

When Sonnet 35 left us in little doubt about the nature of the young man's transgression without actually spelling it out, Sonnet 40 seals the lid on this and makes it as clear as can be that what this 'sweet thief' has stolen from William Shakespeare is – much as we surmised – not an orange, but a love. Who this love is we don't know, but as we noted then, it is obviously not Anne, Shakespeare's wife. It is another love. 

This makes Sonnet 40 fascinating beyond anything we had until recently been led to expect. Right up until Sonnet 35 we got the impression that William Shakespeare is uniquely and – apart from Anne, his wife in Stratford – exclusively devoted to his young man. So much adoration, adulation, admiration had been directed towards him that we could be forgiven for thinking that – besides Anne perhaps, with their children – he, the young man, was the only person in Shakespeare's life who really matters.

Apparently not so. This sonnet sets somebody else on a par with the young man. It is, I believe, the only one to do so and soon Shakespeare will draw a very clear distinction between the young man and this other person, but going by this sonnet and the words this sonnet contains alone, we have here a poet outraged not about his lover having gone astray elsewhere randomly – as seemed to be the case with Sonnets 33 and 34 – but very much, and as Sonnet 35 appeared to suggest, with another love of his. And here it may be practical to anticipate a bit, because the temptation would be to call this other love another lover, but in our use of the English language that would strongly suggest another man, and while Sonnet 40 doesn't tell us what gender this other person identifies as, Sonnets 41 and 42 will give it to us in writing that we are talking here about a woman. 

Our understanding of Shakespeare is newly stood on its head. Up until recently we had him married to Anne Hathaway in Stratford, while in London clearly, wholly, consumed with love and passion for this one young man. Repeating myself somewhat just to drive home this point: nothing in the sequence so far has suggested either that a) any of these sonnets until now – including the first 17 'Procreation Sonnets' – were directed at anyone other than the same young man, or, b) that there is anyone else receiving Shakespeare's affections to any level that might be considered noteworthy. What Sonnet 40 spells out in more or less the Shakespearean equivalent to a bright LED sign in capital letters is that: I HAVE ANOTHER LOVE AND YOU HAVE TAKEN HER FROM ME. And here the use of words, if it hadn't been so before, becomes super-significant:

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all.
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?


Other people: 1
Young man: 1

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call:
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.


Love itself: 2
Young man: 1

Then if for my love thou my love receivest
I cannot blame the for my love thou usest;


Love itself: 1
Other person: 2

And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.


Love itself: 2

I do not mean to suggest that William Shakespeare himself sat down and counted the instances in which he uses the word 'love' and made sure he allocated them in a specific way, but what we learn from looking back and counting is that this sonnet on its own gives an equivalence to this other person: she – as it will soon turn out to be – is called 'love' twice, he is addressed as 'love' twice, love itself is named and invoked, almost conjured, one might feel, five times, and these generic other loves who may or may not exist but who are always a potential in any case are mentioned only once but first.

There have been occasions when we were given the impression that the young man responded to a sonnet he received from William Shakespeare by directly or indirectly putting the poet in his place. This sonnet, either consciously or – perhaps more likely subconsciously – does something similar in reverse: Shakespeare, clearly upset, clearly dejected, lets the young man know in no uncertain terms that he is not the only one.

And yet he is. This is a sonnet, after all, and one of 126 that we know of to be more or less directly addressed to or about or composed in the context of the young man and Shakespeare cannot bring himself to be angry forever:

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty.


Even though it pains me more - as it does anyone – to be thus injured by someone you love than by someone you know already hates you, I build up to the closing couplet which, resigned and defiant, depleted and resilient all at the same time, returns you the young man to your special, your unchallenged place in my heart:

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.


There is a way out of this and I am beginning to pave it right now. 

It's an astonishing sonnet, this, and it contains one more nugget that absolutely is worth picking out and polishing just for one more closer inspection:

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

Because indeed: what on earth prompted the young man to get off with his lover's 'love'? Who does such a thing? And why? Everything we know so far, including this particular line, points towards a young man – beyond measure wealthy, connected, powerful, young, beautiful, attractive, uninterested in women – who could have anyone. Why go for the mistress of the man who professes his undying love for you? Out of spite? Jealousy? To test this love? To 'pull rank', effectively, and say: remember, I'm the one here who counts, so if you go off elsewhere, then I'll come with you? Almost too literally? 

And who – still this question, ever looming larger now, of course – just who is this other love? We don't know. Yet. There will be a whole different sequence much later in the collection, which appears to mirror these events. This has led many readers, scholars, and editors, including me, to believe that the 'Dark Lady' of those 'later' sonnets – later in the collection but in that case simultaneous in time – is exactly this here 'love'. But we don't know. We will never know entirely for certain, but we will get more and more illustrative pieces of this ever growing jigsaw, and in the short term, we are just about to get confirmation that yes, this other person, this other love that you have taken from me is a woman, but no, whatever this here sonnet may be suggesting, she is – in both applicable senses of the word – no match for you.
​
​​<

​>

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