When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past,I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,And moan […]
Sonnet 29
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyesI all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself, and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,With what I most enjoy contented […]
Sonnet 28
How can I then return in happy plight,That am debarred the benefit of rest?When day’s oppression is not eas’d by night,But day by night and night by day oppress’d,And each, though enemies to either’s reign,Do in consent shake hands to torture me,The one by toil, the other to complainHow far I toil, still farther off […]
Sonnet 27
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;But then begins a journey in my headTo work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:For then my thoughts–from far where I abide–Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,Looking on darkness which the blind do see:Save […]
Sonnet 26
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalageThy merit hath my duty strongly knit,To thee I send this written embassage,To witness duty, not to show my wit:Duty so great, which wit so poor as mineMay make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,But that I hope some good conceit of thineIn thy soul’s thought, […]
Sonnet 25
Let those who are in favour with their starsOf public honour and proud titles boast,Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph barsUnlook’d for joy in that I honour most.Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spreadBut as the marigold at the sun’s eye,And in themselves their pride lies buried,For at a frown they in their glory […]
Sonnet 24
Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath steel’d,Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart;My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,And perspective it is best painter’s art.For through the painter must you see his skill,To find where your true image pictur’d lies,Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,That hath his windows glazed […]
Sonnet 23
As an unperfect actor on the stageWho with his fear is put besides his part,Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart.So I, for fear of trust, forget to sayThe perfect ceremony of love’s rite,And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,O’ercharged with burden of mine own […]
Sonnet 22
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,So long as youth and thou are of one date;But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,Then look I death my days should expiate.For all that beauty that doth cover theeIs but the seemly raiment of my heart,Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:How […]
Sonnet 21
So is it not with me as with that MuseStirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse,Who heaven itself for ornament doth useAnd every fair with his fair doth rehearseMaking a couplement of proud compare,With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems,With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rareThat heaven’s air in this […]