William Shakespeare  - Quotes

 As an unperfect actor upon the stage

Who with much fear is put besides his part

Or some fierce thing, replete with too much rage

Whose strengths abundance weakens his own heart

So I, for fear of trust, forget to say

The perfect ceremony of love's rite

And in mine own love's strength seem to decay

O'ercharged with burthen of my own love's might

o, let my books be then the eloquence

And dumb presagers of my speaking breast

Who plead for love, and look for recompense

More than that tongue that more hath express'd.

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ

To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
 

Tags: shakespeare   sonnet     


William Shakespeare  - Quotes

 Therefore I lie with her and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

 

Tags: sonnet     
William Shakespeare  - Quotes

 When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer's green all girded up in sheaves

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go,

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake

And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
 

Tags: clock   shakespeare   sonnet   time     


William Shakespeare  - Quotes

 That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
 

Tags: priceless   sonnets     
Anne Fadiman  - Quotes

 A sonnet might look dinky, but it was somehow big enough to accommodate love, war, death, and O.J. Simpson. You could fit the whole world in there if you shoved hard enough. 

Tags: sonnet   sonnets     
Elizabeth Barrett Browning  - Quotes

 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

-How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
 

Tags: love   sonnet     
Edna St. Vincent Millay  - Quotes

 Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

and rise and sink and rise and sink again.

Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

Yet many a man is making friends with death

even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,

pinned down by need and moaning for release

or nagged by want past resolution's power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It may well be. I do not think I would.
 

Tags: love   poetry   sonnet     


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