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

The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first, my thought, the other, my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide,
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to earth, oppressed with melancholy,
Until life's composition be recured
By those swift messengers returned from thee
Who even but now come back again, assured
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.
        This told, I joy, but then, no longer glad,
        I send them back again and straight grow sad.
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LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 45

The other two, slight air and purging fire,
The sonnet continues seamlessly from the previous one and still talks about elements, so:

The other two elements, namely air which is 'slight' because it has no substantive body and no perceptible weight, and fire, which is purging because it in a biblical sense and also in a literal sense purifies...
Are still with thee, wherever I abide;
...both these elements are always with you, no matter where I happen to be.
​The first my thought, the other my desire,
The first of these, air, equates to my thought, and the other, fire, is my desire for you...

These associations are fairly commonplace and would not have surprised anyone who read or heard this sonnet, but it is telling that Shakespeare here spells out a desire for the young man, which further supports the strong impression we have been getting that this relationship has since ceased to be a purely Platonic friendship.
​These present-absent with swift motion slide,
...these two elements are so insubstantial that they can constantly slide to and fro between here where I am and there where you are, making it feel as if they were in both places at once.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,

And here is the reason why they are so constantly moving backwards and forwards: because when these elements, which are much quicker than the heavy, slow elements of the previous poem, water and earth, have gone to you in their role as emissaries from me, conveying my love and passion for you like an ambassador who might bear epistles of love or indeed sonnets to the betrothed of a king or a queen, for example...
My life, being made of four, with two alone
​Sinks down to earth, oppressed with melancholy,
...then my life, which, like everybody else's is made up of all four elements to function properly, now being left with only the two – and the two heavy ones at that – sinks down to the ground in a profound depression...

PRONUNCIATION:​
Note that melancholy is here pronounced as three syllables: [me-lan-chly'.
Until life's composition be recured,
...and this lasts until my life is restored to its complete composition, consisting of all four elements...
By those swift messengers returned from thee,
Who even but now come back again, assured
​Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.

...when these two light elements, which are both acting as swift messengers, return to me from you in an instant, and they do so assured of your good health and relate this to me.

The Quarto Edition has 'their' fair health, which editors in the main agree must be a common 'thy'/'their' confusion by the typesetter.

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that 
even here is pronounced as one syllable: [een].
       This told I joy, but then, no longer glad,
       I sent them back again and straight grow sad.
Told this good news, I rejoice, but then – implied is in almost the exact same instant again – I am no longer glad, presumably because I am after all away from you and miss you and would much rather you were here with me than just having to cling on to the 'messages' brought to me by my thoughts and my desire, and so I send them back to you again, and of course, thus imbalanced, become sad again straight away.

Sonnet 45 follows on directly from Sonnet 44 as a seamless continuation and therefore needs to be read in tandem with it for it to make sense. With Sonnet 44 having introduced the two classical elements earth and water and explained how it is their heavy materiality that prevents William Shakespeare from being with his young lover, Sonnet 45 now speaks to the nature of the remaining two elements, air and fire, and finds a way to express how it is that even though they be physically insubstantial and infused with liveliness, they still contribute to his prevailing sadness about this period of separation:

​If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way,
For then, despite of space, I would be brought
From limits far remote where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,
For nimble thought can jump both see and land
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan,
       Receiving naught by elements so slow
​       But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first, my thought, the other, my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide,
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to earth, oppressed with melancholy,
Until life's composition be recured
By those swift messengers returned from thee
Who even but now come back again, assured
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.
        This told, I joy, but then, no longer glad,
        I send them back again and straight grow sad.

While Sonnet 44 set up a simple premise that was so easy to follow, we ventured that it might be bordering on the banal, Sonnet 45 ups the ante considerably on the theoretical, if not indeed the emotional level. As we have sensed on several occasions before, the logic at work is not of Boolean rigour, but then George Boole was born a good 250 years after Shakespeare, so it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise.

The essence of these two sonnets is the idea that while my body, being made of heavy substances, principally earth – for which today we would read minerals and carbon, and water, which is indeed what the human body consists of to roughly 60 percent – cannot cover the physical distance between us when I am away from you, my thought and my desire for you, being made of air and fire respectively, are always with you. Today, we would not consider air to be insubstantial since we understand its chemical composition, and we certainly wouldn't consider fire to be an element, but rather a process, but in Shakespeare's Renaissance understanding of the world, the notion that air and fire, like earth and water, are of a comparable kind and that they are both insubstantial and therefore free from the physical constraints that heavy elements are subject to is common currency. 

Perhaps the most interesting aspect to Sonnet 45 is that Shakespeare doesn't leave it at that: he could have argued, had he wanted to, I am made of water and earth and therefore have to remain here where I am, but my thoughts and my desire are made of air and fire and they can and will therefore always be with you. End of story: his audience – whoever that may have been for this sonnet, whether he in fact sent it to his lover, or kept it to read it to him later, or never intended it for anyone's eyes and ears but his own – would have understood this and happily accepted that the love he bears his young man causes his thoughts and his desire to be entirely with him.

Instead though Shakespeare picks up on the classical notion that in order for the human being to be complete, these four elements have to remain in a finely tuned balance. And so if I send these two elements of me, my thoughts and my desire, to you across a distance, then I lack them: my composition goes out of kilter and I am weighed down by the watery earthiness of my sluggish body without the force of air and fire enlivening and lifting it. Thought and desire therefore are not with you permanently and still, they oscillate between me, where I need them to keep me going, and you, where I send them to relate my love to you and to receive news and reassurance of your wellbeing in return, and so I myself am torn between the sadness I feel for being away from you and the joy I get from thinking of you.

And so while Sonnet 45 may not be logically absolutely sound and the physics to us seem quaint, its psychology is deeply insightful: our period of separation causes me both hope and despair, both uncertainty and self-propelled reassurance; in the absence of any effective communication from you I hold on to my hope that all is well since no news is – we cling on to this rail for our own sanity – good news.

That there is no effective communication is something the words of these two sonnets don't spell out but that we can both infer and reasonably assume. Having done so before and very recently, I need not rehearse the modes and channels of communication that are open to us but not to Shakespeare and his young man, and so suffice it to say that nothing in Sonnets 43 through 51 suggests that Shakespeare has had any kind of response, missive or message from his young man. This does not prove that there was none, but we don't need to stray far into the domain of conjecture here to think it entirely possible that indeed, there wasn't: Shakespeare finds ways to let us know when he is in an active two-way exchange or composing poetry directly after one, but here, over a longish stretch of sonnets and therefore we must assume time, this doesn't apply.

And this may tell us two things that are certainly of great interest and that, as it happens, fit our broad picture of Shakespeare's situation and the trajectory of his relationship with this young man plausibly well. Assuming, as we believe we have reason to do and as – we noted not so long ago – even people who reorder the sonnets tend to allow, that this sequence is more or less in the correct order and further assuming that the 'correct' order is determined by chronologically sequential events, then what we observe is this:

– Awakening love and unabashed declaration of such with some setbacks and possibly a rebuke: Sonnets 18 to 26.
– Separation through absence from my young lover: 27 & 28.
– Joyous reunion followed by abject disorientation, anger, sadness and forgiveness all resulting from betrayal, interspersed with a couple of sonnets that may or may not belong in the sequence but that in any case bring no new event into the proceedings: 33 to 42 (38 and 39 being the 'rogues').
– Renewed and extended separation through absence, reflecting an ennui and longing or, as we have termed it, boredom and limbo: 43 to 51.

If this is more or less what has happened then – and this is the second thing that would match up with what we have gathered so far – the fact that during this second period of separation, Shakespeare receives no further word from his young man, would appear to be rather in character. His fickleness has been established, as has his need, on occasion, to assert his independence and to do whatever the hell he likes. These two sonnets say nothing about this, but they are part of an effective bridge that is being cast to the moment when Shakespeare literally spells it out.

Sonnets 44 and 45 sit near the beginning of this separation, and while we don't know what causes it or how long it is – other than that reasonable spacing of these sonnets over time would suggest weeks rather than days – what we do know is that it is bookended by Shakespeare's express forgiveness of the young man's transgression in Sonnets 40 to 42, and what sounds like a both boisterously celebratory and serenely sensual reunion in 52, 53, and that would allow us to speculate – it remains, it has to be said, pure speculation, albeit informed by what we can read in and between and throughout these lines – that following turmoil, Shakespeare finds himself away worrying, wishing, and wondering, without any kind of affirmation that the love is kept alive at his lover's end as well as his, before finally finding it fulsomely so.

We are here in danger of getting carried away and somewhat ahead of ourselves though, because what follows next is another pair of sonnets that extend this excursion into more abstract reflections on the challenges imposed by love at a distance with the carefully constructed and also quite classically cushioned Sonnets 46 & 47.


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