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SONNET #1
by: William Shakespeare
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 bright eyes,
Feed'st thy
light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine
where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too
cruel.
Thout
that are now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald
to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy
content
And,
tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world,
or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave
and thee.
SONNET #2
by: William Shakespeare
WHEN forty
winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in
thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on
now,
Will be a
tottered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked where all
thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty
days,
To say
within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame
and thriftless praise.
How much more prasie deserved thy
beauty's use
If
thou couldst answer, 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my
count and make my old excuse,'
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 cold.
SONNET #3
by: William Shakespeare
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 renewest,
Thou dost beguile the
world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair
whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so
fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
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 rememb'red not to be,
Die single, and thine image
dies with thee.
SONNET #4
by: William Shakespeare
UNTHRIFTY
loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself they beauty's
legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth
lend,
And,
being frank, she lends to those are free.
Then, beateous
niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given
thee to give?
Profitless userer, why dost thou use
So great a sum
of sums, yet canst not live?
For, having traffic with
thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost
deceive:
Then
how, when Nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable
audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with
thee,
Which,
us
è
d, lives th' executor to
be.
SONNET #5
by: William Shakespeare
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 leads summer on
To hideous
winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and
lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnowed and bareness
everywhere.
Then, were not summer's distillation
left
A liquid
prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty
were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers
distilled, though they with winter meet,
Leese but there
snow; their substance still lives sweet.
SONNET #6
by: William Shakespeare
THEN let not winter's
ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer ere thou be
distilled:
Make
sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's
treasure ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden
usury
Which
happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for
thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it
ten for one.
Ten times thyself were happier than
thou art,
If
ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if
thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-
willed, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and
make worms thine heir.
SONNET #7
by: William
Shakespeare
LO,
in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head,
each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with
looks his sacred majesty;
And having climbed the steep-up
heavenly hill,
Resembling strong yough in his middle
age,
Yet mortal
looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden
pilgrimage;
But
when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age
he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, fore duteous, now converted
are
From his
low tract and look another way:
So thou, thyself outgoing
in thy noon,
Unlooked on diest unless thou get a
son.
SONNET #8
by: William Shakespeare
MUSIC to hear, why hear'st
thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy
delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou
receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine
annoy?
If the
true concord of well-tun
è
d
sounds,
By
unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide
thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou
shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to
another,
Strikes each in each by mutual
ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy
mother,
Who,
all in one, one pleasing note do sing;
Whose speechless song,
being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt
prove none.'
SONNET #9
by: William Shakespeare
IS it for fear
to wet a widow's eye
That thou consum'st thyself in single
life?
Ah, if
thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee
like a makeless wife;
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.
Look
what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his
place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in
the world an end,
And, kept unused, the user so destroys
it:
No love
toward others in that bosom sits
Than on himself such
murd'rous shame commits
SONNET #10
by: William
Shakespeare
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 lov'st is most evident;
For thou art so possessed
with murd'rous hate
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not
to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair
should be thy chief desire.
O, change thy thought, that
I may change my mind;
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle
love?
Be as thy
presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least
kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self for love of me,
That beauty
still may live in thine or thee.
SONNET
#11
by: William
Shakespeare
AS
fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st
In one of
thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which
youngly thou bestow'st
Thou mayst call thine when thou from
youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and
increase;
Without this, folly, age, and cold
decay.
If all
were minded so, the times should cease,
And threescore
year would make the world away.
Let those whom Nature hath
not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly
perish:
Look
whom she best endowed she gave the more,
Which bounteous
gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish.
She carved thee for her
seal, and meant thereby
Thou shouldst print more, not let that
copy die.
SONNET #12
by: William Shakespeare
WHEN I do count
the clock that tells the time
And see the brave day sunk
in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime
And sable curls
all silvered o'er with white,
When lofty trees I see
barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the
herd,
And
summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the
bier with white and bristly beard;
Then of thy beauty do I
question make
That thou among the wastes of time must
go,
Since
sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast
as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can
make defense
Save breed, to brave him when he takes
thee hence.
SONNET #13
by: William Shakespeare
O , THAT you
were yourself, but, love, you are
No longer yours than you
yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should
prepare,
And
your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that
beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then
you were
Yourself again after yourself's decease
When your sweet
issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house
fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honor might uphold
Against the
stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's
eternal cold?
O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love,
you know
You
had a father -- let your son say so.
SONNET #14
by: William Shakespeare
NOT from the stars do I my
judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy;
But not to tell
of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or season's
quality;
Nor
can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his
thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict
that I in heaven find;
But from thine eyes my knowledge I
derive,
And,
constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and
beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store
thou wouldst convert:
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
Thy end is
truth's and beauty's doom and date.
SONNET #15
by: William Shakespeare
WHEN I consider everything
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 as
plants increase,
Cheer
è
d and
checked even by the selfsame sky,
V
aunt in their
youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state
out of memory:
Then the conceit of this inconstant
stay
Sets you
most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time
debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied
night;
And, all
in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I
ingraft you new.
SONNET #16
by: William Shakespeare
BUT wherefore
do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify
yourself in your decay
With means more
bless
è
d than my barren rime?
Now stand you
on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens, yet unset,
With virtuous
wish would bear your living flowers,
Much liker than your
painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life
repair
Which
this time's pencil or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth nor
outward fair
Can make you live yourself in eyes of
men.
To give
away yourself keeps yourself still,
And you must live, drawn by
your own sweet skill.
#16
was
originally
published
in
Shake-speares
Sonnets:
Never
before
Imprinted
(1609).
SONNET #17
by: William
Shakespeare
HO
will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your
most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as
a tomb
Which
hides your life and shows not half your parts.
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 touched earthly faces.'
So should my
papers, yellowed with their age,
Be scorned, like old men of
less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet's
rage
And
stretch
è
d metre of an
antique song.
But were some child of yours alive that
time,
You
should live twice--in it and in my rime.
#17
was
originally
published
in
Shake-speares
Sonnets:
Never
before
Imprinted
(1609).
SONNET #18
by: William
Shakespeare
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.