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About this text

  • Title: Shake-speares Sonnets (Quarto 1, 1609)
  • Editors: Hardy M. Cook, Ian Lancashire

  • Copyright Hardy M. Cook and Ian Lancashire. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editors: Hardy M. Cook, Ian Lancashire
    Peer Reviewed

    Shake-speares Sonnets (Quarto 1, 1609)

    SONNETS.

    To doe more for me then mine owne desert,
    And hang more praise vpon deceased I,
    Then nigard truth would willingly impart:

    O least your true loue may seeme falce in this,
    1075That you for loue speake well of me vntrue,
    My name be buried where my body is,
    And liue no more to shame nor me, nor you.
    For I am shamd by that which I bring forth,
    And so should you, to loue things nothing worth.

    108073

    THat time of yeeare thou maist in me behold,
    When yellow leaues, or none, or few doe hange
    Vpon those boughes which shake against the could,
    Bare rn'wd quiers, where late the sweet birds sang.
    1085In me thou seest the twi-light of such day,
    As after Sun-set fadeth in the West,
    Which by and by blacke night doth take away,
    Deaths second selfe that seals vp all in rest.
    In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
    1090That on the ashes of his youth doth lye,
    As the death bed, whereon it must expire,
    Consum'd with that which it was nurrisht by.
    This thou perceu'st, which makes thy loue more strong,
    To loue that well, which thou must leaue ere long.

    109574

    BVt be contented when that fell arest,
    With out all bayle shall carry me away,
    My life hath in this line some interest,
    Which for memoriall still with thee shall stay.
    1100When thou reuewest this, thou doest reuew,
    The very part was consecrate to thee,
    The earth can haue but earth, which is his due,
    My spirit is thine the better part of me,
    So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
    1105The pray of wormes, my body being dead,
    The coward conquest of a wretches knife,
    To