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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    Not Peer Reviewed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)

    27019
    Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
    And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
    Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
    And burn the long-lived Phoenix in her blood;
    275Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
    And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
    To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
    But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
    Oh, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
    280Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
    Him in thy course untainted do allow
    For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
    Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
    My love shall in my verse ever live young.
    28520
    A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
    Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
    A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
    With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
    290An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
    Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
    A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
    Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth;
    And for a woman wert thou first created,
    295Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
    And by addition me of thee defeated,
    By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
    But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
    Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.
    30021
    So 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,
    305Making 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 air in this huge rondure hems.
    Oh, let me true in love but truly write,
    310And 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.
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