March 09, 2006

Tribute to Shakespeare

Sometimes, it's nice to reminisce on those works we had to study in school. Indulge!!!

Sonnets CXXX
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.

-- William Shakespeare



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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

-- William Shakespeare

The Beaver

My guest map is wonderful ! And you'd all be wonderful to post, all of you lurk mode readers!
Thanks and may the winds of Fate blow your way !

2 comments:

Saur♥Kraut said...

To be honest, I like the second but always thought the first sounded funny. By the end of it, I have pictured a woman who looks like a child's drawing with corkscrew curls coming out of her head at all angles, and stinky breath. ;o)

I loooooove Elizabeth Barret Browning!

Beaver said...

Yeah, they are pretty special poems. I like to think that "my mistress's eyes" is a response to "shall I compare thee..."

While the latter tells of the feminine ideal, the first is an ode to the real woman, full of flaws, yet deserving of his love....