Shakespeare's Sonnets: My love is strength'ned, though more weak in seeming

Shakespeare's Sonnets: My love is strength'ned, though more weak in seeming

Sonnet 102

Original Text
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): g2r.
1My love is strength'ned, though more weak in seeming;
2I love not less, though less the show appear.
3That love is merchandis'd, whose rich esteeming
4The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
5Our love was new and then but in the spring
6When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
7As Philomel in summer's front doth sing
8And stops his pipe in growth of riper days.
9Not that the summer is less pleasant now
10Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
11But that wild music burthens every bough
12And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
13    Therefore like her I some-time hold my tongue
14    Because I would not dull you with my song.

Notes

1] Extrametrical, like line 3. Back to Line
6] lays] poems. Back to Line
7] Philomel] a subject in Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus and poem The Rape of Lucrece. Raped by Tereus, who cut out her tongue, Philomel conspired with his wife Procne to kill their son Itys and feed him to Tereus. Before he avenged their deed, the gods turned them all into birds: as Ovid says in Metamorphoses (6.424-674), Philomel became a nightingale, and Procne a swallow. Back to Line
8] his] Q (i.e., 'its', that is, 'summer's'; her Duncan-Jones. riper] later, 'more mature.' Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1609
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Rhyme
ababcdcdefefgg
Form
sonnet