THEY that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow,—
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
About the poet |
William Shakespeare |
By the same poet |
Sonnet i |
Sonnet ii |
Sonnet iii |
Sonnet iv |
Sonnet v |
Sonnet vi |
Sonnet vii |
Sonnet viii |
Sonnet ix |
Sonnet x |
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 |