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William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Let those who are in favour with their stars
Sonnet 25


              1Let those who are in favour with their stars
              2Of public honour and proud titles boast,
              3Whil'st I whom fortune of such triumph bars
              4Unlook't for joy in that I honour most;
              5Great princes' favorites their fair leaves spread
              6But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
              7And in them-selves their pride lies burièd,
              8For at a frown they in their glory die.
              9The painful warrior famoused for worth,
            10After a thousand victories once foil'd,
            11Is from the book of honour rasèd quite,
            12And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
            13    Then happy I that love and am belovèd
            14    Where I may not remove, nor be removed.

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Shakespeare's Sonnets: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Notes

1] in favour with their stars] lucky.

3] bars] denies.

4] Unlook't for] unexpectedly.

9] painful] pains-taking or -enduring. famoused] celebrated (earliest citation in 1606); made famous. worth] not rhyming with line 11, "quite." Emendation to "fight," "might," and "right" (among other words) is possibly undecidable.


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): c2r.
First publication date: 1609
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2008
Recent editing: 1:2008/8/22

Composition date: 1609
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: ababcdcdefgfhh


Other poems by William Shakespeare