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  • Title: The Sonnets (Modern)
  • Editor: Michael Best

    • Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Michael Best
    Not Peer Reviewed

    The Sonnets (Modern)

    103570
    That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
    For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
    The ornament of beauty is suspect,
    A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
    1040So thou be good, slander doth but approve
    Thy worth the greater, being wooed of time;
    For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
    And thou present'st a pure unstainèd prime.
    Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
    1045Either not assailed, or victor, being charged;
    Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
    To tie up envy, evermore enlarged.
    If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
    105071
    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.
    1055Nay, if you read this line, remember not
    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.
    Oh, if, I say, you look upon this verse,
    1060When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
    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.
    106572
    O, lest the world should task you to recite
    What merit lived in me that you should love,
    After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
    For you in me can nothing worthy prove--
    1070Unless you would devise some virtuous lie
    To do more for me than mine own desert,
    And hang more praise upon deceasèd I
    Than niggard truth would willingly impart.
    O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
    1075That you for love speak well of me untrue,
    My name be buried where my body is,
    And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.
    For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
    And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
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