Wednesday Poetry Break: Happy Birthday Will!

Today is the presumed birthday of William Shakespeare, born 444 years ago on April 23, 1564. (Oh, I know that's not a picture of William Shakespeare, it's Joseph Fiennes playing young Will in "Shakespeare in Love." Don't be so picky -- just feast your eyes!)

And what a treat today to listen to the Writer's Almanac, and hear Garrison Keillor reading the poem below. Enjoy!

Sonnet 104

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 pérfumes 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.

— William Shakespeare

Wednesday poetry break

From today's edition of the Writers Almanac. (You may have heard of this guy.)

65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O! none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

— William Shakespeare

While you're at it, head on over to one of my favorite blogs, Shakespeare's Sister ....

Friday morning poetry break

The Globe Theater burned to the ground on on this day in 1613. In case you've forgotten your high school English class, the Globe was for many years the most popular theater in London. It was also the theater where many of Shakespeare's greatest plays were performed.

Sonnet 55

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear'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 judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

— William Shakespeare

If you'd like to read more, please take a trip over to the The Writer's Almanac.