Poems by William Shakespeare

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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Carpe Diem

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

O stay and hear! your true-love's coming

That can sing both high and low;

Trip no further, pretty sweeting,

Journey's end in lovers' meeting—

Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;

Present mirth hath present laughter;

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 2: "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow"

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

William Shakespeare

Fairy Land V

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

William Shakespeare

The Rape Of Lucrece

TO THE

RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,

Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet,

without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your

honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it

assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is

yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 60: :Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore"

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

William Shakespeare

Fidele

FEAR no more the heat o' the sun,

Nor the furious winter's rages;

Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:

Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great,

Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;

William Shakespeare

Dirge Of The Three Queens

Urns and odours bring away!

Vapours, sighs, darken the day!

Our dole more deadly looks than dying;

Balms and gums and heavy cheers,

Sacred vials fill'd with tears,

And clamours through the wild air flying!

Come, all sad and solemn shows,

That are quick-eyed Pleasure's foes!

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 32: "If thou survive my well-contented day"

If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bettering of the time,

And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 106: "When in the chronicle of wasted time"

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have express'd

Even such a beauty as you master now.

William Shakespeare

The Phoenix And The Turtle

Let the bird of loudest lay

On the sole Arabian tree

Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,

Foul precurrer of the fiend,

Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 53: "What is your substance, whereof are you made"

What is your substance, whereof are you made,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since everyone hath, everyone, one shade,

And you, but one, can every shadow lend.

Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit

Is poorly imitated after you;

On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,

And you in Grecian tires are painted new.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 1: "From fairest creatures we desire increase"

From 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'st flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

William Shakespeare