It was harder to get through the Sonnets than I had imagined. I started out doing research into each one but then I started to find the experience more tedious than I wanted. I did learn that they are written in sort of a cycle, supposedly mirroring life in general. I also learned their rhythms and rhymes which became more prevalent as I went onward. Some had good lines or phrases, a few I liked the entire sonnet. Below are my notes:
3
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime
6
Be not self-will’d, for thou are much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
9
The world will be thy widow, and still weep.
That thou no form of thee has left behind.
13
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay
Which husbandry in honor might uphold.
Against the stormy gusts of winters day,
And barron rage of death’s eternal joy?
Oh, none but unthrifts: dear my love, you know
You had a father; let your son say so.
19
Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws
And burn the long-liv'd phoenix in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
And do what e'er thou wilt, swift-footed time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted do allow
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.
23
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ;
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.
27
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,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
Lo! Thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.
29
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 possessed,
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 remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
35
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done;
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains, mud;
Clouds and eclipses strain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
43
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me
50
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct, the wretch did know,
His writer loved not speed, being made from thee:
My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.
56
Or call it winter, which, being full of care,
Makes summers welcome thrice more wisht, more rare.
83
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
Then both your poets can impress devise
87
Thus have I had the comma as a dream, death flatter,
In sleep, a king, but waking no such matter.
88
When thou shalt be disposed to set me light
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side against myself I’ll fight
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults concealed wherein I am attainted,
That thou, in losing me, shall win much glory;
And I by this will be a gainer too;
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That, for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.
94
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
95
The hardest knife, ill-used doth lose his edge
97
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they sing, ‘tis with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near
102
And sweets, grown common, lose their dear delight
116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
119
What potions have I drunk of siren tears
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessèd never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O, benefit of ill! Now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruined love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuked to my content,
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
129
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
