Go Shakespeare, it’s your Birthday
posted by DL Byron on April 23, 2005
To celebrate the Bard’s birthday, here’s Sonnet 55, one of my favorites, addressed to the beautiful young man, perhaps a lover, perhaps just the Bard’s patron — the debate goes on … The theme is the power of Shakespeare’s own art to outlast time and thereby make the beloved eternal. Sonnet 55 surges with some of the most powerful imagery ever breathed into a mere 14 lines of verse. What better quote to post on the Bard’s 441st birthday!
Sonnet LV
“Not marble, nor the gilded monuments”
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rime;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besemear’d with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
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Comments
Apr 23 | D.J. Hanley said:
‘Tis wondrous good of TexturaDesign to celebrate the Bard’s birthday. Methinks the world is blessed to have a site such as thine.
Apr 25 | -b- said:
Thank you kind Sir