Theme Index

The poet urges the fair youth to have children, in order to perserve his beauty for the ages.
1: "From fairest creatures we desire increase"
2: "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow"
3: "Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest"
4: "Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend"
5: "Those hours that with gentle work did frame"
6: "Then let not winter's ragged hand deface"
7: "Lo, in the orient when the gracious light"
8: "Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?"
9: "Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye"
10: "As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest"
11: "As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest"
12: "When I do count the clock that tells the time"
13: "O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are"
14: "Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck"
16: "But wherefore do not you a mightier way"
17: "Who will believe my verse in time to come"
The poet asserts that his poetry will perserve the beauty of his beloved against the ravages of time.
15: "When I consider every thing that grows"
18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
19: "Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws"
54: "O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem"
55: "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments"
60: "Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore"
63: "Against my love shall be, as I am now"
65: "Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea"
81: "Or I shall live your epitaph to make"
100: "Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long"
101: "O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends"
107: "Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul"
108: "What's in the brain that ink may character"
The poet speaks of the sincerity of his love and his love poetry.
21: "So is it not with me as with that Muse"
23: "As an unperfect actor on the stage"
32: "If thou survive my well-contented day"
76: "Why is my verse so barren of new pride"
82: "I grant thou wert not married to my Muse"
83: "I never saw that you did painting need"
125: "Were't aught to me I bore the canopy"
The poet sends love poetry to his beloved.
23: "As an unperfect actor on the stage"
26: "Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage"
The poet wrestles with the problem that he is quite a bit older than the one he loves.
22: "My glass shall not persuade me I am old"
62: "Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye"
63: "Against my love shall be, as I am now"
73: "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"
138: "When my love swears that she is made of truth"
The poet affirms the joyful power of love.
25: "Let those who are in favour with their stars"
29: "When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"
30: "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought"
91: "Some glory in their birth, some in their skill"
116: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds "
A distance separates the poet and his beloved.
27: "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed"
28: "How can I then return in happy plight"
43: "When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see"
44: "If the dull substance of my flesh were thought"
45: "The other two, slight air and purging fire"
48: "How careful was I, when I took my way"
50: "How heavy do I journey on the way"
51: "Thus can my love excuse the slow offence"
52: "So am I as the rich, whose blessed key"
56: "Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said"
61: "Is it thy will thy image should keep open"
97: "How like a winter hath my absence been"
98: "From you have I been absent in the spring"
113: "Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind"
The image of his beloved lives in the poet's mind, changing the way he views the world.
27: "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed"
113: "Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind"
114: " Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you"
The poet speaks to the fair youth about how he should feel about the poet's death.
32: "If thou survive my well-contented day"
66: "Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry"
71: "No longer mourn for me when I am dead"
72: "O, lest the world should task you to recite"
73: "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"
74: "But be contented: when that fell arrest"
The poet has loved and lost.
33: "Full many a glorious morning have I seen"
87: "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing"
There's a love triangle: the fair youth is dallying with a woman beloved by the poet.
35: "No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done"
40: "Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all"
41: "Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits"
42: "That thou hast her, it is not all my grief"
133: "Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan"
134: "So, now I have confess'd that he is thine"
144: "Two loves I have of comfort and despair"
There is a debate between the poet's eye and heart over which one has the best claim to the poet's beloved.
46: "Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war"
47: "Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took"
The poet compares his beloved to precious treasure.
48: "How careful was I, when I took my way"
52: "So am I as the rich, whose blessed key"
75: "So are you to my thoughts as food to life"
The poet praises the beauty of his beloved.
53: "What is your substance, whereof are you made"
59: "If there be nothing new, but that which is"
62: "Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye"
67: "Ah! wherefore with infection should he live"
68: "Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn"
99: "The forward violet thus did I chide"
106: "When in the chronicle of wasted time"
The poet complains of his slavery to love.
57: "Being your slave, what should I do but tend"
58: "That god forbid that made me first your slave"
118: "Like as to make our appetites more keen"
The poet is jealous, and suspects that his beloved may be involved with others.
57: "Being your slave, what should I do but tend"
58: "That god forbid that made me first your slave"
61: "Is it thy will thy image should keep open"
69: "Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view"
70: "That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect"
93: "So shall I live, supposing thou art true"
The poet mourns the fact that his beloved will die.
64: "When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced"
126: "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power"
The poet speaks of his beloved as the inspiration of his poetry.
76: "Why is my verse so barren of new pride"
78: "So oft have I invok'd thee for my Muse "
79: "Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid"
100: "Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long"
101: "O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends"
105: "Let not my love be call'd idolatry"
108: "What's in the brain that ink may character"
The poet gives advice about what to do about the destructive power of time.
77: "Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear"
There is a rival poet (and sometimes more than one) who is writing verse in praise of the poet's beloved.
78: "So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse"
79: "Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid"
80: "O, how I faint when I of you do write"
82: "I grant thou wert not married to my Muse"
83: "I never saw that you did painting need"
84: "Who is it that says most? which can say more"
85: "My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still"
86: "Was it the proud full sail of his great verse"
The poet fears he will be abandoned by his beloved.
87: "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing"
88: "When thou shalt be disposed to set me light"
89: "Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault"
90: "Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now"
91: "Some glory in their birth, some in their skill"
92: "But do thy worst to steal thyself away"
93: "So shall I live, supposing thou art true"
94: "They that have pow'r to hurt and will do none"
95: "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame"
The poet finds that the beauty of his beloved is deceptive.
93: "So shall I live, supposing thou art true"
94: "They that have pow'r to hurt and will do none"
95: "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame "
96: "Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness"
The poet feels that he is losing his touch; his poetic output is dwindling and seems inadequate.
101: "O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends"
102: "My love is strength'ned, though more weak in seeming"
103: "Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth"
105: "Let not my love be call'd idolatry"
The poet proclaims that the beauty of his beloved will never be surpassed.
104: "To me, fair friend, you never can be old"
106: "When in the chronicle of wasted time"
The poet proclaims that his beloved is his all in all.
108: "What's in the brain that ink may character"
109: "O, never say that I was false of heart"
112: "Your love and pity doth th' impression fill"
The poet has strayed from his devotion to his beloved.
110: "Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there"
117: "Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all"
118: "Like as to make our appetites more keen"
119: "What potions have I drunk of Siren tears"
120: "That you were once unkind befriends me now"
The poet reacts to a stain on his reputation.
111: "O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide"
112: "Your love and pity doth th' impression fill"
121: " 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed"
The poet says that his love can overcome the destructive power of time.
115: "Those lines that I before have writ do lie"
116: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"
122: "Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain"
123: "No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change"
124: "If my dear love were but the child of state"
The poet speaks of the power of the unconventional beauty of his mistress (the "Dark Lady").
127: "In the old age black was not counted fair"
130: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
131: "Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art"
132: "Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me"
134: "If thy soul check thee that I come so near"
137: "Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes"
138: "When my love swears that she is made of truth"
139: "O, call not me to justify the wrong"
141: "In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes"
148: "O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head"
The Dark Lady is untrue to him, and the poet, still in love with her, struggles to deal with that.
138: "When my love swears that she is made of truth"
139: "O, call not me to justify the wrong"
140: "Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press"
142: "Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate"
143: "Lo! as a careful huswife runs to catch"
144: "Two loves I have of comfort and despair"
147: "My love is as a fever, longing still"
149: "Canst thou, O cruel, say I love thee not"
150: "O, from what pow'r hast thou this pow'rful might"
151: "Love is too young to know what conscience is"
152: "In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn"
The Dark Lady tosses the poet a crumb of affection.
145: "Those lips that Love's own hand did make"
Two pretty sonnets about Cupid.
153: "Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep"
154: "The little Love-god lying once asleep"