The Sonnets XCIX - The forward violet thus did I chide

The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my loves breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my loves veins thou hast too grossly dyd.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stoln thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stoln of both,
And to his robbery had annexd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet, or colour it had stoln from thee.

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

The Sonnets LXXXIII - I never saw that you did painting need

William Shakespeare, Simple Poetry

The Sonnets CXL - Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

William Shakespeare, Simple Poetry

The Sonnets CXXVII - In the old age black was not counted fair

William Shakespeare, Simple Poetry

The Sonnets CXXXIII - Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan

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 XCV - How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
O! what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beautys veil doth cover every blot
And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill-usd doth lose his edge.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets XXXV - No more be grievd at that which thou hast done

No more be grievd at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
Thy adverse party is thy advocate,
And gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate,
That I an accessary needs must be,
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

William Shakespeare

Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet CII

Where be those roses gone, which sweetned so our eyes?
Where those red cheeks, which oft, with faire encrease, did frame
The height of honour in the kindly badge of shame?
Who hath the crimson weeds stolne from my morning skies?
How doth the colour vade of those vermilion dies,
Which Nature self did make, and self-ingrain'd the same?
I would know by what right this palenesse ouercame
That hue whose force my hart still vnto thraldome ties?
Galens adoptiue sonnes, who by a beaten way
Their iudgements hackney on, the fault of sicknesse lay;
But feeling proofe makes me say they mistake it furre:
It is but loue which makes this paper perfit white,
To write therein more fresh the storie of delight,
Whiles Beauties reddest inke Venus for him doth sturre.

Philip Sidney

The Sonnets XL - Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamd, if thou thy self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
To bear greater wrong, than hates known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets LXX - That thou art blamd shall not be thy defect

That thou art blamd shall not be thy defect,
For slanders mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heavens sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater being wood of time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou presentst a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days
Either not assaild, or victor being chargd;
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlargd,
If some suspect of ill maskd not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets CXLII - Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profand their scarlet ornaments
And seald false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robbd others beds revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovst those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied!

William Shakespeare