Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Back to homepage






William Shakespeare 
1564-1616  


Sonnet 29

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 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 least;
Yet in these thoughts, myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

A masterful example of the sonnet form (of course). The entire poem is two sentences long. The semicolon in the first sentence divides the sonnet into two stanzas, of eight and then six lines: in the first part, a problem is stated; in the second, a solution revealed. The concluding couplet recaps and offers a satisfying end. In fact, a Shakespearean sonnet is often defined in terms of this same formula. Technically perfect, a handsome, well-phrased and well-delivered compliment. I particularly like "sullen earth".




Sonnet 130

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 which 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.

I love this; what a wonderful twist on the traditional panegyric nature of sonnets to the adored one, which can get wearisome--and written, of course, when the sonnet form was still an innovation. Hence, the traditional sonnets that Shakespeare is gently mocking were, at the time, mostly written by Shakespeare.




Sonnet 18

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.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
So every fair from fair sometime declines
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this; and this gives life to thee.

Eternal life via the written word: in this case, the poet's claim of his sonnet's longevity was justified. Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is one of his most famous.




Sonnet 147

My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th'uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

I like the final couplet.




Back to homepage