Shakespeare's Sonnets

by William Shakespeare

Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now, Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held;

Proving his beauty by succession thine! This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. But if thou live, remember’d not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Thy unus’d beauty must be tomb’d with thee, Which, used, lives the executor to be.

But flowers distill’d, though they with winter meet, Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

That use is not forbidden usury Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That’s for thyself to breed another thee,

Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

The world will be thy widow and still weep That thou no form of thee hast left behind, When every private widow well may keep By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind.

If all were minded so, the times should cease And threescore year would make the world away.

She carv’d thee for her seal, and meant thereby Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, “This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne’er touch’d earthly faces.”

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ! To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

The painful warrior famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foil’d, Is from the book of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d;

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.

For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,

No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done; Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud, Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

This told, I joy; but then, no longer glad, I send them back again, and straight grow sad.

For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, And I am still with them, and they with thee,

So true a fool is love, that in your will, Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

O, sure I am, the wits of former days To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds, Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

If it be poison’d, ’tis the lesser sin That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,

Shakespeare is wrong. When people don't love us, we change. Not changing despite alteration is not love, it is toxic to ourself.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground; And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know;

For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.