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Sonnet 98 by William Skakespeare

Page history last edited by Ann Vipond 6 years ago

 Sonnet 98

 by

William Shakespeare   

 

One of the sonnets addressed to the ‘Fair Youth’, this poem sees Shakespeare bemoaning the fact that he could not appreciate all the beauty of spring around him because he was absent from the young man. As a consequence, spring seemed like a winter to him. This is not as famous as, say, Sonnet 18 (‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’), which is a shame – it’s a wonderful evocation of spring and, as with Tennyson, it’s a bittersweet poem about the season.

 

 

 

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud pied April dress’d in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

 


 

 

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