The Sonnets IX - Is it for fear to wet a widows eye

Is it for fear to wet a widows eye,
That thou consumst thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By childrens eyes, her husbands shape in mind:
Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beautys waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murdrous shame commits.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. Known as the 'Bard of Avon,' his extant works include approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

William Shakespeare

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William Shakespeare, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Sonnets LXVI - Tired with all these, for restful death I cry

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplacd,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgracd,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalld simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tird with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

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The Sonnets IV - Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beautys legacy?
Natures bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which, used, lives th executor to be.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets LXIV - When I have seen by Times fell hand defacd

When I have seen by Times fell hand defacd
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razd,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded, to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets I - From fairest creatures we desire increase

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beautys rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feedst thy lights flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the worlds fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender churl makst waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the worlds due, by the grave and thee.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets VI - Then let not winters ragged hand deface

Then let not winters ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilld:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beautys treasure ere it be self-killd.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
Thats for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigurd thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willd, for thou art much too fair
To be deaths conquest and make worms thine heir.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets XX - A womans face with natures own hand painted

A womans face with natures own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A womans gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false womens fashion:
An 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 mens eyes and womens souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till 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 prickd thee out for womens pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy loves use their treasure.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets IX - Is it for fear to wet a widows eye

Suggested Poems

The Sonnets IX - Is it for fear to wet a widows eye