Sonnet IX
Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye That thou consumest thyself in single life? Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die. The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife; The
Sonnet XXIX
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like
Sonnet CXXVI
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle, hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow’st; If
Sonnet L
How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary travel’s end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say ‘Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!’
Winter
When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When Blood is nipped and ways be
Sonnet 121: Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed
‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed When not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing. For
Sonnet LVI
Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, Which but to-day by feeding is allay’d, To-morrow sharpen’d in his former might: So, love, be thou; although
Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
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
A Lover's Complaint
FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sistering vale, My spirits to attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale; Ere long
Sonnet CLIV
The little Love-god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took
Sonnet CXLI
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleased
Sonnet CXVII
Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all Wherein I should your great deserts repay, Forgot upon your dearest love to call, Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day; That I have
Dirge
COME away, come away, death, And in sad cypres let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
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
Sonnet 36: Let me confess that we two must be twain
Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one; So shall those blots that do with me remain, Without thy help, by me be borne alone. In our