excerpts on the theme of love from Shakespeare's sonnets


Below is a compilation of references I found on the theme of love in Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets:

Thou art thy Mother’s glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime

                                    Sonnet 3

 

Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase

                                    Sonnet 11

 

truth and beauty shall together thrive

                                    Sonnet 14

 

If I could write the beauty of your eyes

And In fresh numbers number all your graces

                                    Sonnet 17

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate

…thy eternal summer shall not fade

                                    Sonnet 18

 

 

…the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me

                                    Sonnet 22

 

For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee

                                    Sonnet 27

 

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

                                    Sonnet 29

 

And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

                                    Sonnet 31

 

And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts     

                                    Sonnet 31

 

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight

                                    Sonnet 36

 

To entertain the time with thoughts of love

                                    Sonnet 39

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all

                                    Sonnet 40

 

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee…

…nights bright days, when dreams do show thee me

                                    Sonnet 43


With my love’s picture, then my eye doth feast

                                    Sonnet 47

 

…greet me with that sun, thine eye

                                    Sonnet 49

 

…desire, of perfect’st love being made,

…Towards thee I’ll run

                                    Sonnet 51

 

On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set

                                    Sonnet 53

 

 

 

…how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

                                    Sonnet 54

 

You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

                                    Sonnet 55

 

Sweet love, renew thy force…

                                    Sonnet 56

 

…the treasure of his spring.

                                    Sonnet 63

 

…summer’s honey breath…

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

                                    Sonnet 65

 

…heaven’s sweetest air

                                    Sonnet 70

 

My spirit is thine, the better part of me

                                    Sonnet 74

 

So are you to my thoughts as food to life

Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground

…all full with feasting on your sight

                                    Sonnet 75

 

O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument

…For as the sun is daily new and old,

So is my love still telling what is told.

                                    Sonnet 76

 

…thou art all my art…

                                    Sonnet 78

 

…you alone are you

                                    Sonnet 84

 

…bending all my loving thoughts on thee

…Such is my love, to thee I so belong

                                    Sonnet 88

 

 

…thy sweet beloved name

                                    Sonnet 89

 

Thy love is better than high birth to m            e

                                    Sonnet 91

 

But heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell

                                    Sonnet 93

 

The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet

                                    Sonnet 94

 

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee

                                    Sonnet 97

 

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For, as you were when first your eye I eyed

Such seems your beauty still

…In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned

                                    Sonnet 104

 

Kind is my love today

                                    Sonnet 105

 

…in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,

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

                                    Sonnet 106

 

…thou art my all

                                    Sonnet 109

 

You are my all the world

                                    Sonnet 112

 

…Love is not love

Which alters when it alterations finds

…It is the star to every wandering bark

…Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come

                                    Sonnet 116

 

Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score

                                    Sonnet 122

 

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Whilst my poor lips…by thee blushing stand.

                                    Sonnet 128

 

…I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

                                    Sonnet 130

 

Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel

                                    Sonnet 131

 

My reason, the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept

                                    Sonnet 147

 

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Suggested Reading List from The Brooklyn College MFA Program in Creative Writing

Much Ado About Nothing: His May of youth and bloom of lustiness; with gray hairs and bruise of many days

Antony and Cleopatra, gypsy, orient pearl, my salad days, when I was green in judgment