Hank Whittemore's Shakespeare Blog

Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,

For thee, and for my self, no quiet find – Sonnet 27

Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one:

So shall those blots that do with me remain,

Without thy help be borne by me alone – Sonnet 36

As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite,

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth – Sonnet 37

What can mine own praise to mine own self bring,

And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee? – 39

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you – Sonnet 57

And all those beauties whereof now he’s King

Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight – Sonnet 63

Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,

In sleep a King, but waking no such matter – Sonnet 87

Yet this abundant issue seemed to me

But hope of Orphans, and un-fathered fruit – Sonnet 97

What’s in the brain that ink may character,

Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?

What’s new to speak, what now to register,

That may express my love, or thy dear merit?

Nothing, sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,

I must each day say o’er the very same,

Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,

Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name – Sonnet 108

For nothing in this wide Universe I call,

Save thou, my Rose, in it thou art my all – Sonnet 109

Now all is done, have what shall have no end – Sonnet 110

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-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown although his height be taken – Sonnet 116

But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me – Sonnet 120

If my dear love were but the child of state,

It might for fortune’s bastard be un-fathered – Sonnet 124

And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art

But mutual render, only me for thee – Sonnet 125

O Thou my lovely Boy, who in thy power

Dost hold time’s fickle glass, his sick hour,

Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st

Thy lovers withering, as they sweet self grow’st:

If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)

As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose: that her skill

May time disgrace and wretched minute kill.

Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,

She may detain but not sill keep her treasure!

Her Audit (though delayed) answered must be,

And her Quietus is to render thee.

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