William Shakespeare's Sonnets #1, #7, #9, #11, #12, and #16 are summarized. Each sonnet addresses themes of beauty, time, mortality, reproduction, and legacy. They were originally published in 1609 in Shake-speares Sonnets: Never before Imprinted.
1. Shakespeare’s POEMS!!
SONNET #1
by: William Shakespeare
ROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thout that are now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
Shakespeare's 'Sonnet #1' was originally published in Shake-speares
Sonnets: Never before Imprinted (1609).
2. Shakespeare’s POEMS!!!
SONNET #7
by: William Shakespeare
O, in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong yough in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,
Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.
"Sonnet #7" was originally published in Shake-speares Sonnets:
Never before Imprinted (1609).
3. Shakespeare’s POEMS!!
SONNET #9
by: William Shakespeare
S it for fear to wet a widow's eye
That thou consum'st thyself in single life?
Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow, and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep,
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind.
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And, kept unused, the user so destroys it:
No love toward others in that bosom sits
Than on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
"Sonnet #9" was originally published in Shake-speares Sonnets:
Never before Imprinted (1609).
4. Shakespeare’s POEMS!!
SONNET #11
by: William Shakespeare
S fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st
In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;
Without this, folly, age, and cold decay.
If all were minded so, the times should cease,
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:
Look whom she best endowed she gave the more,
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish.
She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
"Sonnet #11" was originally published in Shake-speares Sonnets:
Never before Imprinted (1609).
5. Shakespeare’s POEMS!!
SONNET #12
by: William Shakespeare
HEN I do count the clock that tells the time
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white,
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard;
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defense
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
"Sonnet #12" was originally published in Shake-speares Sonnets:
Never before Imprinted (1609).
6. Shakespeare’s POEMS!!
SONNET #16
by: William Shakespeare
UT wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blessèd than my barren rime?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens, yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair
Which this time's pencil or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
To give away yourself keeps yourself still,
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.
"Sonnet #16" was originally published in Shake-speares Sonnets:
Never before Imprinted (1609).