Sonnet CVII: Not mine own Fears, nor the Prophetic Soul

By William Shakespeare 1564–1616 William Shakespeare

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,

Can yet the lease of my true love control,

Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd

And the sad augurs mock their own presage;

Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd

And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

Now with the drops of this most balmy time

My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,

Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,

While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes;

And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

Biography

While William Shakespeare's reputation is based primarily on his plays, he became famous first as a poet. With the partial exception of the Sonnets (1609), quarried since the early nineteenth century for autobiographical secrets allegedly encoded in them, the nondramatic writings have traditionally been pushed to the margins of the Shakespeare industry. Yet the study of his nondramatic poetry can illuminate Shakespeare's . . .

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