Two Sonnets from the Bard on His 448th Birthday

[Passion of the Poets]

This is the title page from the first known folio of works by William Shakespeare published in 1623.

Call William Shakespeare the ultimate literary enigma and you just might be right. On top of the controversial debates over whether it was he or another who wrote his time-defying plays, there is the phenomenal report that he was born and died on the same day: April 23, 1564 to April 23, 1616.  If we accept the birth date as accurate, today then mark the 448th anniversary of his birth. The only thing that remains beyond dispute in regard the Bard is the sheer excellence of the works that bear his name.

 

   SONNET XXI

So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O! let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
   Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
   I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

                     --William Shakespeare

 

 
SONNET XXIX

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
   For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
   That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

                       --William Shakespeare

 

Passionofthepoets

[100K Poets Making A Difference]

Have you checked out how so many poets got birthdays in National Poetry Month just like a crew of jazz musicians got BDays when this is Jazz Appreciation Month too? Besides Shakespeare and Angelou there’s…

William Wordsworth on April 7…

Charles Baudelaire April 9…

 Gary Soto was on the 12th….

Seamus Heaney was on the 13th…

and Yusef Komunyakaa is on the 29th.  

CTI got about half a dozen 2!

100K

[Creative Conversation Interviews]

It is a big day for the "Bard" but check out some of the other events the Associated Press points out April 23 is noted for.

[Author-Poet Aberjhani]

I love the Bard and Sonnet 29 is one of my favorites. Has it really been 448 years already? Wow.