RPO -- William Shakespeare : Shakespeare's Sonnets: As a decrepit father takes delight

William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)

Shakespeare's Sonnets: As a decrepit father takes delight
Sonnet 37

1As a decrepit father takes delight

2To see his active child do deeds of youth

3So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,

4Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.

5For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

6Or any of these all, or all, or more,

7Entitled in their parts, do crownèd sit,

8I make my love ingrafted to this store:

9So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,

10Whil'st that this shadow doth such substance give

11That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,

12And by a part of all thy glory live:

13 Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,

14 This wish I have, then ten times happy me.

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Notes

4] of] from.

7] their] Q; thy widely adopted. The apparent reference of "their" is the plural "these all, or all, or more" (6), so that emendation is not necessary to preserve sense in the passage. The phrase means "Entitled by virtue of their good qualities" (Shakespeare's Sonnets, ed. Stephen Booth [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977]: 195).

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): c4v.
First publication date: 1609
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2008
Recent editing: 1:2008/8/23

Form: sonnet
Rhyme: ababcdcdefefgg

Other poems by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)

Shakespeare's Sonnets: As a decrepit father takes delightSonnet 37

Shakespeare's Sonnets: As a decrepit father takes delight
Sonnet 37