O HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The Canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumèd tincture of the Roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer’s breath their maskèd buds discloses:
But—for their virtue only is their show—
They live unwoo’d and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, my verse distils your truth.
About the poet |
William Shakespeare |
By the same poet |
Sonnet i |
Sonnet ii |
Sonnet iii |
Sonnet iv |
Sonnet v |
Sonnet vii |
Sonnet viii |
Sonnet ix |
Sonnet x |
Sonnet xi |
Sonnet xii |
Sonnet xiii |
Sonnet xiv |
Sonnet xv |
Sonnet xvi |
Sonnet xvii |
Sonnet xviii |
Sonnet xix |
Sonnet xx |
Carpe Diem |
Silvia |
The Blossom |
Spring and Winter (i) |
Spring and Winter (ii) |
Fairy Land (i) |
Fairy Land (ii) |
Fairy Land (iii) |
Fairy Land (iv) |
Fairy Land (v) |
Love |
Dirge |
Under the Greenwood Tree |
Blow, blow, thou Winter Wind |
It was a Lover and his Lass |
Take, O take those Lips away |
Aubade |
Fidele |
The Phoenix and the Turtle |
Related books |
The Arden Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Sonnets, William Shakespeare, Katherine Duncan-Jones (Editor) |
Shakespeare's Sonnets (Penguin Classics), William Shakespeare |
The Complete Sonnets [AUDIOBOOK], William Shakespeare, Michael Williams (Narrator), Peter Egan (Narrator), Peter Orr (Narrator), Bob Peck (Narrator) |
William Shakespeare at amazon.co.uk |