William Sbakespeare

(1564-1616)

MUSIC to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,

Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst

bear.

Mark how one string, sweet husband to an

other,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering, Resembling sire and child and happy mother Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing : Whose speechless song, being many, seem

ing one,

Sings this to thee: "thou single wilt prove none."

WHEN I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must

go,

Since sweets and beauties do themselves for

sake,

And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: a Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course un-
trimm'd; d

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest: Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest ;So long as men can breathe or eyes can

see, f

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

WHEN, in disgrace with fortune and men's

eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least ; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 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.