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- XXV
- Let those who are in favour with their stars
- Of public honour and proud titles boast,
- Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
- Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.
- Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread
- But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
- And in themselves their pride lies buried,
- For at a frown they in their glory die.
- The painful warrior famoused for fight,
- After a thousand victories once foil’d,
- Is from the book of honour razed quite,
- And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:
- Then happy I, that love and am belov’d
- Where I may not remove nor be remov’d.
- XXXVI
- 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, by me be borne alone.
- In our two loves there is but one respect,
- Though in our lives a separable spite,
- Which though it alter not love’s sole effect,
- Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
- I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
- Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
- Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
- Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
- But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
- As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
- 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 everywhere!
- And yet this time removed was summer’s time;
- The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
- Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
- Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
- Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
- But hope of orphans, and unfather’d fruit;
- 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.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), who needs no introduction on a poetry page, was considered the greatest English poet — and perhaps one of the greatest poets of any language — to put pen to paper. The general reading public usually demonstrates an increased interest in his work, especially his sonnets on love, around Valentine’s Day.