Sunny Sonnets

My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnet 130)

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs 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;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That 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.

– William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616

Set Me Where as the Sun Doth Parch the Green (Sonnet 8)

Set me where as the sun doth parch the green,

Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice;

In temperate heat where he is felt and seen;

With proud people, in presence sad and wise;

Set me in base, or yet in high degree,

In the long night, or in the shortest day,

In clear weather, or where mists thickest be,

In lost youth, or when my hairs be grey;

Set me in earth, in heaven, or yet in hell,

In hill, in dale, or in the foaming flood;

Thrall, or at large, alive where so I dwell,

Sick, or in health, in ill fame or good:

Yours will I be, and with that only thought

Comfort myself when that my hope is nought.

 –  Petrarch, 1304 – 1374