Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy

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1. Sonnet VI: Some Lovers Speak Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain, Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires: Of force of heav’nly beams, infusing hellish pain: Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires. Some one his song in Jove, and Jove’s strange tales attires, Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden […]...
2. Visits To St. Elizabeths This is the house of Bedlam. This is the man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is the time Of the tragic man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a wristwatch Telling the time Of the talkative man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a sailor Wearing […]...
3. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
6. Holy Sonnet III: O Might Those Sighs And Tears Return Again O might those sighs and tears return again Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent, That I might in this holy discontent Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourned in vain; In mine Idolatry what showers of rain Mine eyes did waste! what griefs my heart did rent! That sufferance was my […]...
7. Sonnet XLII: Some Men There Be Some men there be which like my method well And much commend the strangeness of my vein; Some say I have a passing pleasing strain; Some say that im my humor I excel; Some, who not kindly relish my conceit, They say, as poets do, I use to feign, And in bare words paint out […]...
8. Infelice Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess, He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand, He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming, Leaving my alone with a private meaning, He loves me so much, my heart is singing. Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening They said: […]...
9. Sonnet XXVII: Is Not Love Here Is not Love here as ’tis in other climes, And differeth it, as do the several nations? Or hath it lost the virtue with the times, Or in this island altereth with the fashions? Or have our passions lesser power than theirs, Who had less art them lively to express? Is Nature grown less powerful […]...
10. I Speak Not I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name; There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame; But the tear that now burns on my cheek may impart The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart. Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace, Were […]...
11. Sonnet XXXIX: Some, When in Rhyme Some, when in rhyme they of their loves do tell, With flames and lightnings their exordiums paint; Some call on Heav’n, some invocate on Hell, And Fates and Furies with their woes acquaint. Elysium is too high a seat for me; I will not come in Styx or Phlegethon; The thrice-three Muses but too wanton […]...
12. Sonnet IX: As Other Men As other men, so I myself do muse Why in this sort I wrest invention so, And why these giddy metaphors I use, Leaving the path the greater part do go. I will resolve you: I am lunatic, And ever this in madmen you shall find, What they last thought of when the brain grew […]...
13. Speak Roughly to Your Little Boy And with that she Began nursing her child again, singing a sort of Lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a vio­ Lent shake at the end of every line: “Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes; He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it […]...
14. Sonnet XXXVI: Thou Purblind Boy Cupid Conjured Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack To wound her heart, whose eyes have wounded me, And suffer’d her to glory in my wrack, Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee: By hellish Styx, by which the Thund’rer swears, By thy fair mother’s unavoided power, By Hecate’s names, by Proserpine’s […]...
15. Speak, God Of Visions O, thy bright eyes must answer now, When Reason, with a scornful brow, Is mocking at my overthrow! O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me, And tell why I have chosen thee! Stern Reason is to judgment come, Arrayed in all her forms of gloom: Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb? No, radiant angel, […]...
16. Sonnet CV Let not my love be call’d idolatry, Nor my beloved as an idol show, Since all alike my songs and praises be To one, of one, still such, and ever so. Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, Still constant in a wondrous excellence; Therefore my verse to constancy confined, One thing expressing, leaves out […]...
17. Sonnet LIV: Yet Read at Last Yet read at last the story of my woe, The dreary abstracts of my endless cares, With my life’s sorrow interlined so, Smok’d with my sighs and blotted with my tears, The sad memorials of my miseries, Penn’d in the grief of mine afflicted ghost, My life’s complaint in doleful elegies, With so pure love […]...
18. Sonnet LXXXV My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts whilst other write good words, And like unletter’d clerk still cry ‘Amen’ To every hymn that able spirit affords In polish’d form […]...
19. Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry “Amen” To every hymn that able spirit affords In polished form […]...
20. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
21. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
22. Yes, the Dead Speak to Us YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the […]...
23. Sonnet XXV: O Why Should Nature O why should Nature niggardly restrain That foreign nations relish not our tongue? Else should my lines glide on the waves of Rhene And crown the Pyrens with my living song. But, bounded thus, to Scotland get you forth, Thence take you wing unto the Orcades; There let my verse get glory in the North, […]...
24. Sonnet I: Like an Advent'rous Seafarer Like an advent’rous seafarer am I, Who hath some long and dang’rous voyage been, And, call’d to tell of his discovery, How far he sail’d, what countries he had seen; Proceeding from the port whence he put forth, Shows by his compass how his course he steer’d, When East, when West, when South, and when […]...
25. I Cannot Change, As Others Do I cannot change, as others do, Though you unjustly scorn; Since that poor swain that sighs for you, For you alone was born. No, Phyllis, no, your heart to move A surer way I’ll try: And to revenge my slighted love, Will still love on, will still love on, and die. When, killed with grief, […]...
26. Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat; My words the hammers fashioning my desire; My breast the forge including all the heat; Love is the fuel which maintains the fire; My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth, Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning; Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth, […]...
27. Constancy I cannot change, as others do, Though you unjustly scorn; Since that poor swain, that sighs for you For you alone was born. No, Phyllis, no, your heart to move A surer way I’ll try: And to revenge my slighted love, Will still love on, will still love on, and die. When, kill’d with grief, […]...
28. Sonnet XV: You That Do Search You that do search for every purling spring, Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows, And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring; You that do dictionary’s method bring Into your rimes, running in rattling rows; You that poor Petrarch’s long-deceased woes, With new-born sighs and denizen’d wit […]...
29. Sonnet XX: An Evil Spirit An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute’s rest; In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake, And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments […]...
30. Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write, And say’st my lines be dull and do not move, I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight, Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love. But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv’d, Whose stomach unto gall hath turn’d thy food, Whose senses, like poor […]...
31. THE Complaint of a Lover SEest thou younder craggy Rock, Whose Head o’er-looks the swelling Main, Where never Shepherd fed his Flock, Or careful Peasant sow’d his Grain. No wholesome Herb grows on the same, Or Bird of Day will on it rest; ‘Tis Barren as the Hopeless Flame, That scortches my tormented Breast. Deep underneath a Cave does lie, […]...
32. Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
33. Holy Sonnet V: I Am A Little World Made Cunningly I am a little world made cunningly Of elements, and an angelic sprite; But black sin hath betrayed to endless night My worlds both parts, and (oh!) both parts must die. You which beyond that heaven which was most high Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write, Pour new seas in mine […]...
34. Sonnet 13 – And wilt thou have me fashion into speech And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each?- I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirit so far off From myself-me-that I […]...
35. The Weeping I have shut my windows. I do not want to hear the weeping. But from behind the grey walls. Nothing is heard but the weeping. There are few angels that sing. There are few dogs that bark. A thousand violins fit in the palm of the hand. But the weeping is an immense angel. The […]...
36. Sonnet XII: That Learned Father To the Soul That learned Father, who so firmly proves The Soul of man immortal and divine, And doth the several offices define: Anima – Gives her that name, as she the Body moves; Amor – Then is she Love, embracing charity; Animus – Moving a Will in us, it is the Mind Mens – […]...
37. Sonnet I: Loving In Truth Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her […]...
38. Sonnet XLVIII: Cupid, I Hate Thee Cupid, I hate thee, which I’d have thee know; A naked starveling ever may’st thou be. Poor rogue, go pawn thy fascia and thy bow For some few rags wherewith to cover thee. Or, if thou’lt not, thy archery forbear, To some base rustic do thyself prefer, And when corn’s sown or grown into the […]...
39. Sonnet XIX: On Cupid's Bow On Cupid’s bow how are my heartstrings bent, That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same? When most I glory, then I feel most shame: I willing run, yet while I run, repent. My best wits still their own disgrace invent: My very ink turns straight to Stella’s name; And yet my words, as […]...
40. Sonnet 33 – Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, To glance up in some face that proved me dear With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled Into […]...