Due to the COVID-19 pandemic I had a unique opportunity to listen to Sir Patrick Stewart read Shakespeare's sonnets, as he has embarked on a sonnet-a-day during the quarantine!
Ideally, that is how I should have be reading all the sonnets, as poetry is meant to be savored slowly not read all in one sitting or in a day or two.
Though poetry is not my strong suit. Shel Silverstein is by far my favorite poet, though I've read some Dickinson and I studied Adrienne Rich in college and in my younger years I actually wrote some poetry.
With that said, I did delve into Sonnets 1-80 which are mainly addressed to a "fair youth", the identity of which has been the subject of speculation among scholars for eons! There are also quite a few (1-17) called Procreation Sonnets that discuss the importance of having a child (as a happy, single, childless woman I took slight offense to these).
Of course we must start off with the most famous of Shakespeare's sonnets, No. 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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'reset 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 live to thee.
While I won't duplicate the entirety of each sonnet, I will pull out a few lines that I enjoyed and/or found meaningful
Sonnet 12:
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defense
Save breed, to brace him when he takes thee hence.
Sonnet 23:
O' learn to read what silent love hath writ.
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
Sonnets 27 & 28 (Insomnia)
27
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired,
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind when body's work's expired.
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see;
***
Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.
28
***
When day's oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night and night by day oppressed;
And each, though enemies to ether's reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee?
I tell the day to please him thou art bright
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven;
So flatter I the swart complexioned night,
When sparkling stars twire not, thou [gild'st] the even.
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.
Sonnet 34:
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?
Sonnet 57:
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
Sonnet 77:
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
And now, we interrupt these sonnets for the tragedy of Othello!
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