Hundreds of years later, William Shakespeare is still considered the greatest author of all time,
and his sonnets are a tribute to his lyrical brilliance.
Select any sonnet to preview it as a card.
Recommended Sonnets:
Sonnet #8 Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Sonnet #18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Sonnet #44 If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way
Sonnet #57 Being your slave what should I do but tend, Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
Sonnet #130 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, Coral is far more red, than her lips red
Sonnet #138 When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her though I know she lies
All Sonnets:
Sonnet #1 From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die
Sonnet #2 When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field
Sonnet #3 Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest, Now is the time that face should form another
Sonnet #4 Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend, Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Sonnet #5 Those hours that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Sonnet #6 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface, In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:
Sonnet #7 Lo in the orient when the gracious light Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Sonnet #8 Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Sonnet #9 Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye, That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Sonnet #10 For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any Who for thy self art so unprovident.
Sonnet #11 As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st, In one of thine, from that which thou departest
Sonnet #12 When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night
Sonnet #13 O that you were your self, but love you are No longer yours, than you your self here live
Sonnet #14 Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck, And yet methinks I have astronomy
Sonnet #15 When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment.
Sonnet #16 But wherefore do not you a mightier way Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?
Sonnet #17 Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Sonnet #18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Sonnet #19 Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood
Sonnet #20 A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, Hast thou the master mistress of my passion
Sonnet #21 So is it not with me as with that muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse
Sonnet #22 My glass shall not persuade me I am old, So long as youth and thou are of one date
Sonnet #23 As an unperfect actor on the stage, Who with his fear is put beside his part
Sonnet #24 Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled, Thy beauty's form in table of my heart
Sonnet #25 Let those who are in favour with their stars, Of public honour and proud titles boast
Sonnet #26 Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;
Sonnet #27 Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear respose for limbs with travel tired
Sonnet #28 How can I then return in happy plight That am debarred the benefit of rest?
Sonnet #29 When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state
Sonnet #30 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, I summon up remembrance of things past
Sonnet #31 Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead
Sonnet #32 If thou survive my well-contented day, When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover
Sonnet #33 Full many a glorious morning have I seen, Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye
Sonnet #34 Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, And make me travel forth without my cloak
Sonnet #35 No more be grieved at that which thou hast done, Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud
Sonnet #36 Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one:
Sonnet #37 As a decrepit father takes delight, To see his active child do deeds of youth
Sonnet #38 How can my muse want subject to invent While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse
Sonnet #39 O how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me?
Sonnet #40 Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all, What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
Sonnet #41 Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, When I am sometime absent from thy heart
Sonnet #42 That thou hast her it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly
Sonnet #43 When most I wink then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected
Sonnet #44 If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way
Sonnet #45 The other two, slight air, and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide
Sonnet #46 Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, How to divide the conquest of thy sight
Sonnet #47 Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other
Sonnet #48 How careful was I when I took my way, Each trifle under truest bars to thrust
Sonnet #49 Against that time (if ever that time come) When I shall see thee frown on my defects
Sonnet #50 How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek (my weary travel's end)
Sonnet #51 Thus can my love excuse the slow offence, Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed
Sonnet #52 So am I as the rich whose blessed key, Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure
Sonnet #53 What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Sonnet #54 O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
Sonnet #55 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme
Sonnet #56 Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite
Sonnet #57 Being your slave what should I do but tend, Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
Sonnet #58 That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure
Sonnet #59 If there be nothing new, but that which is, Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled
Sonnet #60 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end
Sonnet #61 Is it thy will, thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Sonnet #62 Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye, And all my soul, and all my every part;
Sonnet #63 Against my love shall be as I am now With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn
Sonnet #64 When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age
Sonnet #65 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'ersways their power
Sonnet #66 Tired with all these for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born
Sonnet #67 Ah wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety
Sonnet #68 Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty lived and died as flowers do now
Sonnet #69 Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view, Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:
Sonnet #70 That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander's mark was ever yet the fair
Sonnet #71 No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Sonnet #72 O lest the world should task you to recite, What merit lived in me that you should love
Sonnet #73 That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Sonnet #74 But be contented when that fell arrest, Without all bail shall carry me away
Sonnet #75 So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
Sonnet #76 Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change?
Sonnet #77 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste
Sonnet #78 So oft have I invoked thee for my muse, And found such fair assistance in my verse
Sonnet #79 Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace
Sonnet #80 O how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name
Sonnet #81 Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten
Sonnet #82 I grant thou wert not married to my muse, And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
Sonnet #83 I never saw that you did painting need, And therefore to your fair no painting set
Sonnet #84 Who is it that says most, which can say more, Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?
Sonnet #85 My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise richly compiled
Sonnet #86 Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you
Sonnet #87 Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know'st thy estimate
Sonnet #88 When thou shalt be disposed to set me light, And place my merit in the eye of scorn
Sonnet #89 Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offence
Sonnet #90 Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now, Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross
Sonnet #91 Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their body's force
Sonnet #92 But do thy worst to steal thy self away, For term of life thou art assured mine
Sonnet #93 So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceived husband, so love's face
Sonnet #94 They that have power to hurt, and will do none, That do not do the thing, they most do show
Sonnet #95 How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame, Which like a canker in the fragrant rose
Sonnet #96 Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness, Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport
Sonnet #97 How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
Sonnet #98 From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)
Sonnet #99 The forward violet thus did I chide, Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells
Sonnet #100 Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long, To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Sonnet #101 O truant Muse what shall be thy amends, For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Sonnet #102 My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming, I love not less, though less the show appear
Sonnet #103 Alack what poverty my muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride
Sonnet #104 To me fair friend you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed
Sonnet #105 Let not my love be called idolatry, Nor my beloved as an idol show
Sonnet #106 When in the chronicle of wasted time, I see descriptions of the fairest wights
Sonnet #107 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul, Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come
Sonnet #108 What's in the brain that ink may character, Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit
Sonnet #109 O never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify
Sonnet #110 Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there, And made my self a motley to the view
Sonnet #111 O for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds
Sonnet #112 Your love and pity doth th' impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow
Sonnet #113 Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind, And that which governs me to go about
Sonnet #114 Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?
Sonnet #115 Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer
Sonnet #116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments, love is not love
Sonnet #117 Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all, Wherein I should your great deserts repay
Sonnet #118 Like as to make our appetite more keen With eager compounds we our palate urge
Sonnet #119 What potions have I drunk of Siren tears Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within
Sonnet #120 That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel
Sonnet #121 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be, receives reproach of being
Sonnet #122 Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full charactered with lasting memory
Sonnet #123 No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change, Thy pyramids built up with newer might
Sonnet #124 If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered
Sonnet #125 Were't aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring
Sonnet #126 O thou my lovely boy who in thy power, Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour:
Sonnet #127 In the old age black was not counted fair, Or if it were it bore not beauty's name:
Sonnet #128 How oft when thou, my music, music play'st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
Sonnet #129 Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Sonnet #130 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, Coral is far more red, than her lips red
Sonnet #131 Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
Sonnet #132 Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain
Sonnet #133 Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;
Sonnet #134 So now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will
Sonnet #135 Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus
Sonnet #136 If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will'
Sonnet #137 Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, That they behold and see not what they see?
Sonnet #138 When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her though I know she lies
Sonnet #139 O call not me to justify the wrong, That thy unkindness lays upon my heart
Sonnet #140 Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:
Sonnet #141 In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note
Sonnet #142 Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving
Sonnet #143 Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch, One of her feathered creatures broke away
Sonnet #144 Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still
Sonnet #145 Those lips that Love's own hand did make, Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
Sonnet #146 Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth, My sinful earth these rebel powers array
Sonnet #147 My love is as a fever longing still, For that which longer nurseth the disease
Sonnet #148 O me! what eyes hath love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight
Sonnet #149 Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not, When I against my self with thee partake?
Sonnet #150 O from what power hast thou this powerful might, With insufficiency my heart to sway
Sonnet #151 Love is too young to know what conscience is, Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Sonnet #152 In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing
Sonnet #153 Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep, A maid of Dian's this advantage found
Sonnet #154 The little Love-god lying once asleep, Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand
