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
  • EVENTS
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Sonnet 56: Sweet Love, Renew Thy Force, Be it Not Said

Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but today by feeding is allayed,
Tomorrow sharpened in his former might.
So, love, be thou: although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fullness,
Tomorrow see again and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks that when they see
Return of love, more blessed may be the view;
       As call it winter, which, being full of care,
       Makes summer's welcome thrice more wished, more rare.
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LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 56

Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Sweet love – addressed here is love itself, rather then the loved person – renew your force: let it not be said that you have an edge that is blunter than the edge of appetite...

The idea that love has an edge that gives it force when it is sharp is in itself quite original. It here appears to stem from the comparison to appetite of which we say that someone or something can whet, which means sharpen, it. The fact that appetite is brought into the equation may also be telling. Its first association – and the one here used as a metaphor – is of course food, but it also has obvious sexual connotations, and in many relationships sexual desire wanes long before the love or friendship fades.
Which but today by feeding is allayed,
​Tomorrow sharpened in his former might.

...the appetite by eating something can be allayed or dampened or, to use Shakespeare's metaphor, blunted, but even if we do so today, tomorrow it will come back as sharp as it was before. 

Also true is that the act of eating and therefore satisfying an appetite in turn also feeds it: while my hunger may subside for the moment today, tomorrow, I will want more of the same, especially if what I have eaten is something I like, something tasty. 

For our sense of language, there is a verb missing in the second line: we would expect something like 'tomorrow is sharpened', or 'tomorrow returns sharpened'. This here is taken as read.

ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION:
Note that in OP 
allayed rhymes with said above,
​So, love, be thou: although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness

You, love, be like appetite: even if today you fill your hungry eyes so much that they start to feel heavy and drowsy and in need of a nap...

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that 
even here has one syllable: e'en.
Tomorrow see again and do not kill
​The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.

...tomorrow look again at the lover or beloved person and so fill your hungry eyes again, and do not kill off the spirit of love with an everlasting dullness, meaning absence of hunger, desire, lust, or keen feeling of love. One of the dictionary definitions for 'dullness' is in fact "gloominess of mind or spirits: now especially as arising from want of interest," ​(Oxford Dictionaries) and it also means 'bluntness'.

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that spirit here is pronounced as one syllable: sp'rit.
​Let this sad interim like the ocean be
​Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks that when they see
​Return of love, more blessed may be the view;
Let us consider this sad period of separation that we are going through to be like an ocean which puts a large distance between the shores of two separate coastlines, and there, on these shores, two people who are newly betrothed to each other or engaged to be married daily come down to the beach – 'bank' here is the beach or the shore of the ocean, rather than the bank of a river – so that when they see the return of their loved one, they will be even happier, more blessed, more fortunate.

The idea, though – as on some previous occasions has been the case with our poet – it may not be strictly logical, is that a period of separation can be viewed like a large distance that is put between two lovers, and this distance, rather than making the lovers forget each other, keeps them running to the shore in eager anticipation of the lover's return, which would invariably be by boat or ship at the time, and could, under the right circumstances be seen from very far away.
       As call it winter, which, being full of care,
       Makes summer's welcome thrice more wished, more rare.
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Or, much as we can look at this period of separation as an ocean, we may also call it a winter, which is a time of year that is cold, dark, full of heavy burdens and therefore cares, and because of this it makes the return of summer that much more keenly anticipated and desired.

This is reminiscent of Sonnet 52, where Shakespeare told the young man:

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare
Since seldom coming in the long year set
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.


Here, similarly, the object of desire – the loved one, as indeed love itself – is compared to something that cannot always readily be had, but for which there is a season and this is partly what makes it so rare and desirable.

We still use the proverb "absence makes the heart grow fonder," of course, which we briefly referenced also – and from a slightly different angle – in Sonnet 41 where the young man appears to have at least temporarily forgotten about, or certainly lapsed in, his love for William Shakespeare.

Sonnet 56 is the second sonnet in the series so far in which William Shakespeare addresses not the young man, nor us as the general reader or listener about the young man, but an abstract concept, in this case love. The first instance when Shakespeare did something similar was Sonnet 19, which addressed itself to time. Here as then, this changes our perspective and lends the poem an emotional distance, which here is complemented by a direct reference to a hiatus in the relationship.

We do not know what causes "this sad interim" of which Shakespeare speaks, and there is virtually no way of finding out. It may be the case that this sonnet refers to the same prolonged period of separation of which we were aware between Sonnets 43 and 52, which would suggest that it has slipped out of its position in the sequence of composition, which is entirely possible. Similarly possible is that this is a new period of separation which has now commenced after the last one and following the reunion that appeared to be marked by Sonnets 52 and 53, for example because while Shakespeare is now back in town, his young lover has gone away for a time. Or it may simply be the case that although both Shakespeare and the young man are in London, they are either unable or unwilling to see each other, for whatever reason.

Sonnet 56 itself gives us no clue as to what is most likely, but Sonnets 57 & 58, which follow this sonnet and come as a particularly eye-catching pair, will do so, and I am here for once prepared to anticipate this a bit and foreshadow what we will learn shortly, which is that William Shakespeare simply doesn't know where his young lover is or what he is up to, and so to me it sounds plausible, so as not to claim it to be likely, that this sentiment is already being felt here and that therefore it is the young man who is either absent or out of reach.

On its own and in isolation, Sonnet 56 may at first glance seem like an innocuous little poem, but its almost slightly twee wistfulness belies a deeper crisis that is brewing in Shakespeare's relationship with his young man on the one hand, and in his own emotional and professional life on the other, and the two are of course in any case entwined and may well be far more closely enmeshed than we can know.

Every so often with a sonnet of Shakespeare's, the question it primarily poses is: why? Why is Shakespeare writing this, what brought this on? If you have a poet more or less out of the blue asking for love to renew itself and not to allow itself – over a period of absence or separation – to fade or lose its edge, then we are entitled to wonder: why would it? Aside from the obvious and banal answer that that's what relationships do over time if they are not nurtured – which is certainly true – the most obvious reason would be a specific sense the poet has that this particular relationship either is waning or in danger of doing so soon.

But of course: this does not come out of the blue. Bearing in mind always that we know little, and of what little we know we know almost nothing for certain, the impression we have been getting quite strongly and repeatedly is of a precarious relationship with an imperfect lover. From the very beginning it has been clear that Shakespeare is treading on a tightrope on which he has to reconcile an imbalance in age and status with his devotion and love for the young man. As early as Sonnet 24, we realised that this devotion is not commensurately reciprocated:

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art:
They draw but what they see, know not the heart.


Which suggests that Shakespeare simply does not know, at that time, what the young man is actually feeling towards him, when he himself has been telling the young man over several sonnets by now.

With Sonnet 25, Shakespeare thought he was on solid ground:

Then happy I that love and am beloved
Where I may not remove, nor be removed.


Only then to find himself backtracking furiously with Sonnet 26 and effectively apologising for having 'boasted' of his love. Sonnets 27 & 28, which come as a strongly tied pair, and Sonnets 29 and 30, which are at least thematically linked, all appeared to have been written when the two were away from each other, until Sonnet 31 signalled a renewed confidence and possibly a reunion, followed almost immediately by the big crisis that starts with Sonnet 33 and lasts intermittently until Sonnet 42. Sonnet 43 marks the beginning of the 'prolonged period of separation' we spoke of just a moment ago and many times before, whereby it is entirely possible – though I would consider it somewhat unlikely, given the tonality of these poems – that the period of separation that we recognise in Sonnets 27 through 30 and that which comes with Sonnets 43 through 51 are in fact the same trip or tour Shakespeare is on and that the whole interlude of despair over Shakespeare's young man getting off with Shakespeare's own mistress is carried out remotely, while they are away from each other.

What is clear is that by Sonnet 48, William Shakespeare worries about his young lover being stolen from him while he is away from him, and in Sonnet 49 he tells him that he is fully within his rights to leave him, since Shakespeare himself can't see any reason or cause why the young man should love him. With Sonnet 53 we had our extraordinary disparity between two possible 'messages' that the poem could carry, leaving us in categorical doubt as to whether Shakespeare is telling his lover that nobody is as constant, for which read faithful, as he, or the direct opposite, and with Sonnet 54 he offered his "beauteous and lovely youth" to distil his truth, which it turns out he has been doing in more ways than one, and not all of them ones that the young man is bound to find fulsomely flattering.

And so if Sonnet 56 now comes along and asks of love that it renew itself, this is really not all that surprising. Shakespeare is repeatedly put and extensively kept in limbo, and if you have ever been infatuated with someone who likes you and who enjoys being flattered and adored by you, but who will not ever meet you entirely at eye level and most certainly will not commit to you, then you will know exactly just what Shakespeare appears to be going through.

With its note of uncertainty and plea for love not to go stale, Sonnet 56 adds to the profile we are forming for Shakespeare's young lover and it sits perfectly with what we have come to understand about him so far. And because of this, it also further favours our reading of these sonnets up until now as standing in the context of one relationship with one young man, who at one point has an affair or a fling with a woman of whom we know only that Shakespeare considers her his love too and that she is therefore his mistress, since he is, of course, all the while married in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is something of which we can be absolutely certain.

There is of course the possibility – at least in theory – that Sonnet 56 is addressed to somebody completely different. It could, again in theory, even be addressed to Shakespeare's wife, but nobody seriously seems to submit the latter, which I too would consider exceptionally far-fetched, and for the former there are no real grounds to assume as much, since nothing about this sonnet or any of the ones that surround it suggests in any convincing manner that Shakespeare has diverted his affections from his young lover to somebody else. 

And the two sonnets that now follow, Sonnet 57 & 58 give us, if not proof, since none such can be said to exist, then certainly even more compelling reason to believe that Shakespeare is in love with a fickle, independent-minded young man who lets him know in no uncertain terms what his place is in the world and who, in this relationship, owes what to whom...

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