TWELVE SONNETS by William Shakespeare a selection for Ambleside Online/House of Education SparkNotes has helps for some of the Sonnets. http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shakesonnets/ Modern translations for all of the sonnets are also available at http://nfs.sparknotes.com/sonnets/ XVIII (18) http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shakesonnets/section3.rhtml 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 ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. XXX (30) When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing 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 cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd and sorrows end. XXXI (31) Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead; And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. 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 remov'd 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 lov'd, I view in thee, And thou--all they--hast all the all of me. LIII (53) What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since every one, hath every one, one shade, And you but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you; On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, And you in Grecian tires are painted new: Speak of the spring, and foison of the year, The one doth shadow of your beauty show, The other as your bounty doth appear; And you in every blessed shape we know. In all external grace you have some part, But you like none, none you, for constant heart. LIV (54) O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give. The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour, which doth in it live. The canker blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses. Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth. LXXIII (73) http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shakesonnets/section5.rhtml 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. LXXXVII (87) 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? 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. Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgement making. Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. XC (90) 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 'scap'd this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, To linger out a purpos'd overthrow. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, When other petty griefs have done their spite, 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, Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so. XCIV (94) http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shakesonnets/section6.rhtml 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, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow; They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, 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, 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. XCVII (97) http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shakesonnets/section7.rhtml 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; 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; 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. CIV (104) To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I ey'd, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold, Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd, 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 perceiv'd; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd: For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred: Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. CXVI (116) http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shakesonnets/section8.rhtml 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 prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.