reading Sonnets by William Shakespeare
XI: Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase: Without this, folly, age and cold decay: If all were minded so, the times should cease And threescore year would make the world away.
XIV: But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, And, constant stars, in them I read such art As truth and beauty shall together thrive.
XVIII: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
XIX: 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.
XXVII: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when body's work's expired: For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee.
XXIX: Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising, From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
XXXIII: Full many a glorious morning have I seen, Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
XXXV: 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.
XL: I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, Although thou steal thee all my poverty.
XLIII: How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made, By looking on thee in the living day, When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade, Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay! All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
L: How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary travel's end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say. 'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend
LVI: So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness, To-morrow see again, and do not kill The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
LX: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end.
LXII: 'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise, Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
LXIX: By seeing farther than the eye hath shown. They look into the beauty of thy mind.
LXXIII: That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang, Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
LXXV: So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground.
LXXX: Or being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat, He of tall building and of goodly pride: Then if he thrive and I be cast away, The worst was this; my love was my decay.
LXXXV: Hearing you praised, I say ''Tis so, 'tis true,' And to the most of praise add something more; But that is in my thought, whose love to you, Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.
LXXXVII: Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
XCII: O, what a happy title do I find, Happy to have thy love, happy to die! But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot? Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.
XCIV: The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, Though to itself it only live and die, But if that flower with base infection meet, The basest weed outbraves his dignity: For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
XCVI: How many gazers mightst thou lead away, If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
XCVII: How like a winter hath my absence been, From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness every where!
CII: Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song.
CIX: For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.
CXI: Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
CXVI: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
CXXVI: Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure! She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure: Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be, And her quietus is to render thee.
CXXXVIII: When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutor'd youth, Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
CXXXIX: Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain.
CXLIV: But being both from me, both to each friend, I guess one angel in another's hell: Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
CXLVII: My love is as a fever, longing still, For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
CLIV: Growing a bath and healthful remedy, For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall, Came there for cure, and this by that I prove, Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.