SONNET #40

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

AKE all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;

All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

Then, if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;

But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robb'ry, gentle theif,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet love knows it is a greater grief

To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.

SONNET #39

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

, HOW thy worth with manners may I sing

When thou art all the better part of me?

What can mine own praises to mine own self bring,

And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?

Even for this let us divided live

And our dear love lose name of single one,

That by this separation I may give

That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.

O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove

Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave

To entertain the time with thoughts of love,

Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,

And that thou teachest how to make one twain

By praising him here who doth hence remain!

SONNET #38

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

OW can my Muse want subject to invent

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O, give thyself the thanks if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee

When thou thyself dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rimers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight Muse do please these curious days,

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

SONNET #37

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

S a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

Or any of these all, or all, or more,

Intitled in thy parts to crownèd sit,

I make my love ingrafted to this store.

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give

That I in thy abundance am sufficed

And by a part of all thy glory live.

Look what is best, that best I wish in thee.

This wish I have; then ten times happy me!

SONNET #36

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

ET me confess that we two must be twain

Although our individual loves are one:

So shall those blots that do with me remain,

Without thy help by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect,

Though in our lives a separable spite,

Which though it alter not love's sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailèd guilt should do thee shame;

Nor thou with public kindness honor me

Unless thou take that honor from thy name:

But do not so; I love thee in such sort

As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

SONNET #35

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

O more be grieved 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.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense

(Thy adverse party is thy advocate)

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence;

Such civil war is in my love and hate

That I an accessory needs must be

To that sweet thief which sourly robs me.

SONNET #34

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

HY didst thou promise such a beauteous day

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?

'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak

That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:

Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offense's cross.

Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheeds,

And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

SONNET #33

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

ULL 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 splendor on my brow;

But, out alack, he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no white disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

SONNET #32

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

F thou survive my well-contented day

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,

And shalt by fortune once more resurvey

These poor rude lines of thy deceasèd lover,

Compare them with the bett-ring of the time,

And though they be outstripped by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rime,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought

To march in ranks of better equipage;

But since he died, and poets better prove,

Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'

SONNET #31

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

HY bosom is endearèd with all hearts

Which I by lacking have supposèd dead;

And their reigns love, and all love's loving parts,

And all those friends which I thought burièd.

How many a holy and obsequious tear

Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,

As interest of the dead, which now appear

But things removed that hidden in thee lie!

Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,

Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,

Who all their parts of me to thee did give;

That due of many now is thine alone.

Their images I loved I vew in thee,

And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

SONNET #30

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

HEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thought I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,

And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored and sorrows end.

SONNET #29

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

HEN, 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 friend's 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 rememb'red such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

SONNET #28

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

OW can I then return in happy plight

That am debarred the benefit of rest,

When day's oppression is not eased by night,

And each, though enemies to either's reign,

Do in consent shake hands to torture me,

The one by toil, the other to complain

How far I toil, still farther off from thee?

I tell the day, to please him, thou art bright

And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven;

So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,

When sparkling stars twire not, thou gild'st the even.

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,

And night doth nightly make grief's strength seem stronger.

SONNET #27

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

EARY with toil, I haste 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.

SONNET #26

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

ORD of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written ambassage

To witness duty, not to show my wit;

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,

But that I hope some good coneit of thine

In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tottered loving

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

Till then not show my head where thou mayest prove me.

SONNET #25

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

ET those who are in favor with their stars

Of public honor and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

Unlooked for joy in that I honor most.

Great princes' favorites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun's eye;

And in themselves their pride lies burièd,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famousèd for fight,

After a thousand victories once foiled,

Is from the book of honor rasèd quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.

Then happy I, that love and am beloved

Where I may not remove nor be removed.

SONNET #24

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

INE eye hath played the painter and hath stelled

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

And perspective it is best painter's art.

For through the painter must you see his skill

To fine where your true image pictured lies,

Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazèd with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, wherethrough the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee.

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;

They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

SONNET #23

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

S an unperfect actor on the stage,

Who with his fear is put besides his part,

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,

Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;

So I, for fear of trust, forget to say

The perfect ceremony of love's rite,

And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,

O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might.

O, let my books be then the eloquence

And dump presagers of my speaking breast,

Who plead for love, and look for recompense,

More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:

To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

SONNET #22

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Y glass shall not persuade me I am old

So long as youth and thou are of one date;

But when in thee time's furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in they breast doth live, as thine in me:

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary

As I, not for myself, but for thee will,

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;

Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.

SONNET #21

by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

O is it not with me as with that Muse

Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven itself for ornament doth use

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse;

Making a couplement of proud compare

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,

With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare

That heaven's airs in this huge rondure hems.

O let me, true in love, but truly write,

And then believe me, my love is as fair

As any mother's child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:

Let them say more that like of hearsay well;

I will not praise that purpose not to sell.