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

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

Sonnet 5

Original Text
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): b1v-b2r.
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.

Notes

1] hours] disyllabic. Back to Line
3] play the tyrants] tyrannize over. Back to Line
4] unfair] make lined and aged. This is the only OED citation for this verb. Back to Line
6] hid'ous] hideous Q. Back to Line
7] checkt] arrested. leaves] leave's Q. Back to Line
9] distillation] perfume. Back to Line
10] pris'ner] prisoner Q. Back to Line
12] Nor it ... remembrance] an ellipsis of a verb such as "remain" or "survive." Back to Line
13] flow'rs] flowers Q. Back to Line
14] leese] lose. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1609
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Rhyme
ababcdcdefefgg
Form
sonnet