Shakespeare's Love Sonnets

William Shakespeare, Caitlin Keegan

• Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781452113142
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

The perfect gift for someone you love, an illustrated collection of love poems from the poet considered to be the greatest writer in the English language. Shakespeare's sonnets are revered the world over for perfectly capturing the torments and joys of love requited or otherwise in just fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. This treasure of a book collects twenty-nine of the bard's most romantic sonnets, each one lovingly illustrated by the talented Caitlin Keegan. Pretty and contemporary, the illustrations tastefully accentuate the depth of sentiment in each sonnet. A brilliant sun rises over the Sonnet 17 ( Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? ) and a graceful animal adorns the Sonnet 19 (Devouring time, blunt thou the lion s paws). A wonderful present for Valentine's Day but appropriate for any spontaneous expression of love, this is an ideal, sophisticated gift for the legions of Shakespeare fans.

O! never say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have rang’d,
Like him that travels, I return again;
Just to the time, not with the time exchang’d,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reign’d,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain’d,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill! now I find true
That better is, by evil still made better;
And ruin’d love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuk’d to my content,
And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless’d than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red, than her lips red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor’d youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress’d:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.

O! call not me to justify the wrong

That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue:
Use power with power and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
What need’st thou wound with cunning, when thy might
Is more than my o’er-press’d defense can bide?
Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain.

Cupid laid by his brand and fell aslee...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Prologue
• XVIII
• XXIII
• XXX
• LIII
• LV
• LVII
• LX
• LXXIII
• XCVI
• XCIX
• CIV
• CVI
• CIX
• CXXX
• CXXXVIII
• CXXXIX
• CLIII
• About the Illustrator
• Copyright