by Homer
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out 5
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack!
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid? 10
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Sixty-sixth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
TIRED with all these, for restful death I cry, —
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, 5
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, 10
And simple truth miscall’d simplicity,
And captive Good attending captain Ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Seventy-first Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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 dwell;
Nay, if you read this line, remember not 5
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay, 10
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Seventy-third Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
THAT time of year thou may’st 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 sang:
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day 5
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest:
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie 10
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was norish’d by:
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Eighty-seventh Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? 5
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking; 10
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter;
In sleep, a king; but waking, no such matter.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ninetieth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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 an after-loss:
Ah! do not, when my heart hath ‘scaped this sorrow, 5
Come in the rearward of a conquer’d woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite, 10
But in the onset come: so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune’s might;
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ninety-fourth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
THEY that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow, —
They rightly do inherit Heaven’s graces, 5
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die; 10
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ninety-seventh Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
HOW like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time removed was summer’s time; 5
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans, and unfather’d fruit; 10
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ninety-eighth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
FROM you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 5
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br /> Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the Lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the Rose; 10
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it Winter still, and you, away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Fourth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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’ pride;
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d 5
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; 10
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred, —
Ere you were born, was beauty’s summer dead.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Sixth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best 5
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have exprest
Ev’n such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring; 10
And for they look’d but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Seventh Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
NOT mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Suppos’d as forfeit to a confin’d doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur’d 5
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assur’d
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, 10
Since, spite of him, I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Ninth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
O, NEVER say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify:
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie;
That is my home of love; if I have ranged, 5
Like him that travels, I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reign’d
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, 10
That it could so preposterously be stain’d,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Tenth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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 true it is that I have look’d on truth 5
Askance and strangely: but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays prov’d thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind 10
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confin’d.
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Eleventh Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
O, FOR my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means, which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, 5
And almost thence my nature is subdu’d
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.
Pity me then and wish I were renew’d;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel ‘gainst my strong infection; 10
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Sixteenth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixèd mark 5
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come; 10
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out ev’n to the edge of doom:
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
TH’ EXPENSE of Spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy’d no sooner but despisèd straight; 5
Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and
in possession so;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; 10
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Forty-sixth Sonnet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
POOR Soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Fool’d by these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease, 5
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?
Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store; 10
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And, death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Hundred and Forty-eighth Sonnet