Theme Index
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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 "
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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"
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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"
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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"
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The poet has loved and lost.
- 33: "Full many a glorious morning have I seen"
- 87: "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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The poet gives advice about what to do about the destructive power of time.
- 77: "Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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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"
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The Dark Lady tosses the poet a crumb of affection.
- 145: "Those lips that Love's own hand did make"
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Two pretty sonnets about Cupid.
- 153: "Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep"
- 154: "The little Love-god lying once asleep"