RPO -- William Shakespeare : Shakespeare's Sonnets: Those hours that with gentle work did frame

William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Those hours that with gentle work did frame
Sonnet 5

1Those hours that with gentle work did frame

2The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell

3Will play the tyrants to the very same,

4And that unfair which fairly doth excel,

5For never-resting time leads summer on

6To hid'ous winter and confounds him there,

7Sap checkt with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,

8Beauty o'er-snow'd and bareness every where;

9Then were not summer's distillation left

10A liquid pris'ner pent in walls of glass,

11Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,

12Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.

13 But flow'rs distill'd though they with winter meet,

14 Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.

previous poem in the collection
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend next poem in the collection
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Then let not winter's wragged hand deface

Notes

1] hours] disyllabic.

3] play the tyrants] tyrannize over.

4] unfair] make lined and aged. This is the only OED citation for this verb.

6] hid'ous] hideous Q.

7] checkt] arrested. leaves] leave's Q.

9] distillation] perfume.

10] pris'ner] prisoner Q.

12] Nor it ... remembrance] an ellipsis of a verb such as "remain" or "survive."

13] flow'rs] flowers Q.

14] leese] lose.

Online text copyright © 2012, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): b1v-b2r.
First publication date: 1609
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2008
Recent editing: 1:2008/8/21

Form: sonnet
Rhyme: ababcdcdefefgg

Other poems by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Those hours that with gentle work did frameSonnet 5

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Those hours that with gentle work did frame
Sonnet 5