Sonnets by William Shakespeare

The Poetry Podcast

William Shakespeare,1564–1616 William Shakespeare is a writer that needs no introduction. He is famous for his plays such as Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth (and many more). He is also famous for writing in the style of Iambic Pentameter. It was his poetry, his 154 sonnets, that gave me the idea for The Poetry Podcast. In this episode, I will read the first Shakespearean sonnet that I ever learned (Sonnet 75), a famous sonnet (Sonnet 18), and a personal favorite (Sonnet 25). Sonnet 75 So are you to my thoughts as food to life Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground, And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found: Now proud as an enjoyer and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure, Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure, Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look, Possessing or pursuing no delight, Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away. Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d: But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Sonnet 25 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 might, After a thousand victories once foiled, 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 beloved Where I may not remove nor be removed.