OK, OK... I'll just pick one...

[marnanightingale]

My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lip's red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
In some perfumes there is more delight
Than the breath with which my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
Music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Comments

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

That's been one of my favourite sonnets since I first ran across it years ago, purely because of the sentiments - "Yes, I know she's not wonderful, or poetic, or anything like that. I love her anyway."

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Me too. Exactly.

[maggiesox.livejournal.com]

That's my favorite of all the sonnets...

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

By chance, there's been a dispute, the last few days, on the American Dialect Society list, over the syntactic role played by the word "she" in the last line. Amazing what people can find to argue about. (I say this, but must admit that I found the dispute interesting...)

Excellent poem, by the way.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I had forgotten this, so went googling to refresh my memory. Amazing how it is misinterpreted. (although the black wires in particular help lead the unwary astray :<) ). .

[gilded-kage.livejournal.com]

I like that one a lot, but I'm even more intrigued by Sonnet 20, about Shakespeare's passion for the beautiful youth. He equivocates at the end there: you have a "prick" so women can have sex with you and I'll have your love...

A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

[toraks.livejournal.com]

very cool! I haven't seen that one, but I like it lots!!

Thanks! :-)