The Sonnets

William Shakespeare

Index of First lines

  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. For shame! deny that thou bear’st love to any
  11. As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st
  12. When I do count the clock that tells the time
  13. O! that you were your self; but, love you are
  14. Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck
  15. When I consider every thing that grows
  16. But wherefore do not you a mightier way
  17. Who will believe my verse in time to come
  18. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
  19. Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws
  20. A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted
  21. So is it not with me as with that Muse
  22. My glass shall not persuade me I am old
  23. As an unperfect actor on the stage
  24. Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath stell’d
  25. Let those who are in favour with their stars
  26. Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
  27. Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed
  28. How can I then return in happy plight
  29. When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
  30. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
  31. Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts
  32. If thou survive my well-contented day
  33. Full many a glorious morning have I seen
  34. Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
  35. No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done
  36. Let me confess that we two must be twain
  37. As a decrepit father takes delight
  38. How can my muse want subject to invent
  39. O! how thy worth with manners may I sing
  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
  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
  46. Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
  47. Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took
  48. How careful was I when I took my way
  49. Against that time, if ever that time come
  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
  53. What is your substance, whereof are you made
  54. O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
  55. Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
  56. Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
  57. Being your slave what should I do but tend
  58. That god forbid, that made me first your slave
  59. If there be nothing new, but that which is
  60. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
  61. Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
  62. Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
  63. Against my love shall be as I am now
  64. When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d
  65. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
  66. Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
  67. Ah! wherefore with infection should he live
  68. Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn
  69. Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view
  70. That thou art blam’d shall not be thy defect
  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
  75. So are you to my thoughts as food to life
  76. Why is my verse so barren of new pride
  77. Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear
  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
  81. Or I shall live your epitaph to make
  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
  87. Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing
  88. When thou shalt be dispos’d 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 power 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
  97. How like a winter hath my absence been
  98. From you have I been absent in the spring
  99. The forward violet thus did I chide
  100. Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long
  101. O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
  102. My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming
  103. Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth
  104. To me, fair friend, you never can be old
  105. Let not my love be call’d idolatry
  106. When in the chronicle of wasted time
  107. Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
  108. What’s in the brain, that ink may character
  109. O! never say that I was false of heart
  110. Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there
  111. O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide
  112. Your love and pity doth the impression fill
  113. Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind
  114. Or whether doth my mind, being crown’d with you
  115. Those lines that I before have writ do lie
  116. Let me not to the marriage of true minds
  117. Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
  118. Like as, to make our appetite more keen
  119. What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
  120. That you were once unkind befriends me now
  121. ’Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d
  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
  125. Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy
  126. O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
  127. In the old age black was not counted fair
  128. How oft when thou, my music, music play’st
  129. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
  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
  133. Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
  134. So, now I have confess’d that he is thine
  135. Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy ‘Will,’
  136. 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
  140. Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
  141. In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes
  142. Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate
  143. Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
  144. Two loves I have of comfort and despair
  145. Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
  146. Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth
  147. My love is as a fever longing still
  148. O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head
  149. Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not
  150. O! from what power hast thou this powerful might
  151. Love is too young to know what conscience is
  152. In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn
  153. Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep
  154. The little Love-god lying once asleep

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