Shakespeare's Poetry
All 154 Shakespeare Sonnets in Modern English
Read every sonnet alongside an original plain-English paraphrase and close-reading prompts.
- Sonnet 1: FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
- Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,
- Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
- Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
- Sonnet 5: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
- Sonnet 6: Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
- Sonnet 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
- Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
- Sonnet 9: Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
- Sonnet 10: For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
- Sonnet 11: As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
- Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time,
- Sonnet 13: O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are
- Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;
- Sonnet 15: When I consider every thing that grows
- Sonnet 16: But wherefore do not you a mightier way
- Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come,
- Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
- Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
- Sonnet 20: A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
- Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that Muse
- Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
- Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage
- Sonnet 24: Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
- Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars
- Sonnet 26: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
- Sonnet 27: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
- Sonnet 28: How can I then return in happy plight,
- Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
- Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
- Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
- Sonnet 32: If thou survive my well-contented day,
- Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen
- Sonnet 34: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
- Sonnet 35: No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
- Sonnet 36: Let me confess that we two must be twain,
- Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight
- Sonnet 38: How can my Muse want subject to invent,
- Sonnet 39: O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
- Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
- Sonnet 41: Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,
- Sonnet 42: That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
- Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
- Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
- Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air and purging fire,
- Sonnet 46: Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
- Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
- Sonnet 48: How careful was I, when I took my way,
- Sonnet 49: Against that time, if ever that time come,
- Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way,
- Sonnet 51: Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
- Sonnet 52: So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
- Sonnet 53: What is your substance, whereof are you made,
- Sonnet 54: O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
- Sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
- Sonnet 56: Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
- Sonnet 57: Being your slave, what should I do but tend
- Sonnet 58: That god forbid that made me first your slave,
- Sonnet 59: If there be nothing new, but that which is
- Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
- Sonnet 61: Is it thy will thy image should keep open
- Sonnet 62: Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
- Sonnet 63: Against my love shall be, as I am now,
- Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
- Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
- Sonnet 66: Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
- Sonnet 67: Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
- Sonnet 68: Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
- Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
- Sonnet 70: That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
- Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead
- Sonnet 72: O, lest the world should task you to recite
- Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold
- Sonnet 74: But be contented: when that fell arrest
- Sonnet 75: So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
- Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
- Sonnet 77: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
- Sonnet 78: So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
- Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
- Sonnet 80: O, how I faint when I of you do write,
- Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
- Sonnet 82: I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
- Sonnet 83: I never saw that you did painting need
- Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most? which can say more
- Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
- Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
- Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
- Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
- Sonnet 89: Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
- Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
- Sonnet 91: Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
- Sonnet 92: But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
- Sonnet 93: So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
- Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none,
- Sonnet 95: How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
- Sonnet 96: Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
- Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been
- Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring,
- Sonnet 99: The forward violet thus did I chide:
- Sonnet 100: Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long
- Sonnet 101: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
- Sonnet 102: My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;
- Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth,
- Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
- Sonnet 105: Let not my love be call'd idolatry,
- Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time
- Sonnet 107: Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
- Sonnet 108: What's in the brain that ink may character
- Sonnet 109: O, never say that I was false of heart,
- Sonnet 110: Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there
- Sonnet 111: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
- Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth the impression fill
- Sonnet 113: Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
- Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,
- Sonnet 115: Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
- Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds
- Sonnet 117: Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
- Sonnet 118: Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
- Sonnet 119: What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
- Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now,
- Sonnet 121: 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
- Sonnet 122: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
- Sonnet 123: No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
- Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state,
- Sonnet 125: Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy,
- Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
- Sonnet 127: In the old age black was not counted fair,
- Sonnet 128: How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
- Sonnet 129: The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
- Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
- Sonnet 131: Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
- Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
- Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
- Sonnet 134: So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,
- Sonnet 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'
- Sonnet 136: If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near,
- Sonnet 137: Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
- Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth
- Sonnet 139: O, call not me to justify the wrong
- Sonnet 140: Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
- Sonnet 141: In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
- Sonnet 142: Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,
- Sonnet 143: Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch
- Sonnet 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
- Sonnet 145: Those lips that Love's own hand did make
- Sonnet 146: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
- Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still
- Sonnet 148: O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,
- Sonnet 149: Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
- Sonnet 150: O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
- Sonnet 151: Love is too young to know what conscience is;
- Sonnet 152: In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
- Sonnet 153: Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:
- Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep