my favorite one:
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
流畅 带着忧郁
I like one of his most famous sonnets: about his love to a black lady; but I forget the name. It's very beautiful and commfortable to read. I respect him as one of the most well-known literateurs in the world.
sonnet 15!
when I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and cheque'd even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory:
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And, all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I ingraft you new.
I loved it when I first read it because of the intense desire to preserve a lost friend expressed in this poem. The line "all in war with time for love of you" just struck me as both a mourning and a passion. The immortality of this sonnet is as much literary as it is physical.
And of course, I always loved his rhymes.
AND sonnet 130 is pretty good, too. I think that is the one susanna is talking about there, about a black lady. This one is quite humourous and simple, kind of refreshing from his other more complicated ones.