Sonnet II (When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow)

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 tattered 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 praise 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 it cold.

-

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616) pre-eminent English playwright and poet

To the Queen, by the prayers

As the dial hand tells o'er

The same hours it had before,

Still beginning in the ending,
Circular account still lending,

So, most mighty Queen we pray,
Like the dial day by day

You may lead the seasons on,
Making new when old are gone,

That the babe which now is young
And hath yet no use of tongue

Many a Shrovetide here may bow
To that empress I do now,

That the children of these lords,
Sitting at your council boards,

May be grave and aged seen
Of her that was their fathers' queen.

Once I wish this wish again,
Heaven subscribe it with "Amen."

-- attributed to William Shakespeare (1564-1616) discovered in 1972 in a notebook belonging to Elizabeth I's servant Henry Stanford.

Today Queen Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96.

A Sonnet Prayer (in memory of Shakespeare)

In gratitude we bow before your grace,
O God, our bulwark and our steadfast shield.
We humbly offer You our thanks and praise,
That love be sown within our hearts, and yield
A hundred-fold, all for your gospel's sake--
That life and hope may rise on eagle's wing,
That we bless all by Christ's clear call, and make
Our lives, for all in need, an offering.
Burnish our souls, O Truth of God, like brass
That we reflect your love that makes us one.
"Let never day nor night unhallowed pass,
But still remember what the Lord hath done;"
Lord Christ, may we walk humbly in your way
And grant your peace upon these souls, we pray.

Amen.

-- LKS, written on the 505th anniversary of Shakespeare's death on this date in 1516.

Sonnet CXVII-- How like a winter hath my absence been

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 remov'd was summer's time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen 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;
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.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616) greatest English dramatist, poet, and actor

Sonnet LXXIII

That time of year thou mayst 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
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 see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), pivotal English playwright, poet, and actor

Read by Sir Patrick Stewart in his "A Sonnet A Day" COVID19 project:

Sonnet XCVIII: From you have I been absent in the spring

From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,

That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

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;

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.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Pre-eminent English playwright, poet, and actor

To see commentary on this sonnet, click here.

Sonnet III

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 not 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, remembered not to be,
     Die single and thine image dies with thee.

-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Pre-eminent English playwright, poet, and actor

To see commentary on this sonnet, click here.

To hear Sir Patrick Stewart read this poem, click here.

Sonnet II

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 totter'd 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 praise deserv'd 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 it cold.

-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Pre-eminent English playwright, poet, and actor

To see commentary on this poem, click here.

To hear Patrick Stewart read this sonnet, click here.

Sonnet I

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,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art 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.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), pre-eminent English playwright, poet, and actor

For excellent commentary on this sonnet, click here.


To hear and see Sir Patrick Stewart read this sonnet aloud while isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic, click here.

Sonnet 15

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,
Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt 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 engraft you new.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), pre-eminent English playwright and poet

Sonnet 97

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 remov'd was summer's time, 
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, 
Bearing the wanton burthen 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; 
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.

--William Shakespeare, (1564-1616), English actor, playwright, and poet

The Rising of the Sun

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English actor, playwright, and poet, from from Hamlet, Act I, Scene i 

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

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-fixed mark,
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;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
     If this be error and upon me proved,
     I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English dramatist and poet



Photo: Bill and myself at St. Martin's yesterday, the day before our 30th anniversary. Photo by Ruby Downs.

Sonnet LXV: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways 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
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring 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?
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.

-- William Shapespeare (1564-1616) English poet and playwright

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

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:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

The quality of mercy is not strain'd

“The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice.”

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, scene 1

Sonnet 33 (Full many a glorious morning have I seen)

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.
     Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
     Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.

-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright and poet

Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that case and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!"
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
For that same groan doth put this in my mind:
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Sonnet 29 (When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes)

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 possess'd,
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 remember'd such wealth brings
     That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Sonnet 27 (Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed)

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
     Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
     For thee and for myself no quiet find.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)