William Shakespeare

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black, and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not

So, now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still. But

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own

The forward violet thus did I chide: “Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving, O, but with mine, compare thou thine own state, And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,

If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, Which, labouring for invention bear amis The second burthen of a former child! O, that record could

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates

Alas, ’tis true I have gone here and there And made myself a motley to the view, Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new. Most

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to

Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

Against my love shall be, as I am now, With Time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’er-worn; When hours have drain’d his blood and fill’d his brow With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled 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

ON a day alack the day! Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind All unseen ‘gan passage find; That

Let the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou, shrieking harbinger, Foul pre-currer of the fiend, Augur of the

That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel. For if

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their bodies’ force, Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill, Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras’d And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have

Is it thy will thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night? Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, While shadows like to thee do mock my sight? Is

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers’

SHALL I compare thee to a Summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime

WHEN, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, I 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

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free: Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou

Were ‘t aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which prove more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste; These vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear, And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste. The

I never saw that you did painting need And therefore to your fair no painting set; I found, or thought I found, you did exceed The barren tender of a poet’s debt; And therefore

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another, Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I 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

But do thy worst to steal thyself away, For term of life thou art assured mine, And life no longer than thy love will stay, For it depends upon that love of thine. Then

O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O stay and hear! your true-love’s coming That can sing both high and low; Trip no further, pretty sweeting, Journey’s end in lovers’ meeting Every wise man’s

But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by, A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud, Adonis’ trampling courser doth espy, And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud; The strong-neck’d steed, being tied

Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside. O, blame

THEN hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, And do not drop in for

From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory; But thou contracted to thine own

Or whether doth my mind, being crown’d with you, Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alchemy, To

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

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn, But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing, In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn, In vowing new hate after new love bearing.

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that

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

COME unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Court’sied when you have, and kiss’d, The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear. Hark, hark! Bow,

Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you, Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alchemy, To

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

For shame! deny that thou bear’st love to any, Who for thyself art so unprovident. Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many, But that thou none lovest is most evident; For thou

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting time

When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men

Canst thou, O cruel, say I love thee not, When I against my self with thee partake? Do I not think on thee when I forgot Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden

Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch One of her feather’d creatures broke away, Sets down her babe and makes an swift dispatch In pursuit of the thing she would have stay, Whilst

So am I as the rich whose blessèd key Can bring him to his sweet up-lockèd treasure, The which he will not every hour survey, For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. Therefore

When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment. That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment. When I perceive that men