SpokenVerse | Reply to "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" by Louis Untermeyer (poetry reading) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded September 2012 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Alas, I'm never going to sound like a boy again. I remember reading this poem some years ago but could never find it again - until now.
The first picture is of Christopher Marlowe, who was born in 1564. He said,"all they that love not Tobacco and Boys are fools." He was almost exactly the same age as Shakespeare. They were certainly good friends, at least, but whether they were more than just good friends, who knows? They might have collaborated on some of the plays. It's one of them conspiracy theories.
The last picture is "young man among roses" by Nicholas Hilliard 1547 -- 1619, so it's in the right time-period.
Here's the original Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Whenas - methinks that is a pretty way
To start - my father spoke to you anent
The precious note I got the other day
The perfumed posy and the pot of scent,
My drowned eyes are constantly bedewed,
The cruel rod of wrath I have not 'scaped;
My mother has been cool, my brother rude,
Honest, you'd think I was already raped.
You really think I'm like a summer's day?
Really and truly? Thank you ever so -
Behind the Globe, if I can get away,
I'll show my weals and tell thee all my woe.
In your next po'm, an thou wouldst give me joy,
Will you make it clear I'm not that sort of boy?
Alas, I'm never going to sound like a boy again. I remember reading this poem some years ago but could never find it again - until now.
The first picture is of Christopher Marlowe, who was born in 1564. He said,"all they that love not Tobacco and Boys are fools." He was almost exactly the same age as Shakespeare. They were certainly good friends, at least, but whether they were more than just good friends, who knows? They might have collaborated on some of the plays. It's one of them conspiracy theories.
The last picture is "young man among roses" by Nicholas Hilliard 1547 -- 1619, so it's in the right time-period.
Here's the original Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Whenas - methinks that is a pretty way
To start - my father spoke to you anent
The precious note I got the other day
The perfumed posy and the pot of scent,
My drowned eyes are constantly bedewed,
The cruel rod of wrath I have not 'scaped;
My mother has been cool, my brother rude,
Honest, you'd think I was already raped.
You really think I'm like a summer's day?
Really and truly? Thank you ever so -
Behind the Globe, if I can get away,
I'll show my weals and tell thee all my woe.
In your next po'm, an thou wouldst give me joy,
Will you make it clear I'm not that sort of boy?
