Sonnet CIV: To me, fair friend, you never can be old

By William Shakespeare 1564–1616 William Shakespeare

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold

Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned

In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:

Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

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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Poems by William Shakespeare

More poems by William Shakespeare (69 poems)

Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Love, Realistic & Complicated

POET’S REGION England

SCHOOL / PERIOD Renaissance

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Sonnet CIV: To me, fair friend, you never can be old

Sonnet CIV: To me, fair friend, you never can be old

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Poems by William Shakespeare

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