#MIDDLEBURY
To me, fair friend, you never can be old (Sonnet 104)
William Shakespeare
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey’d,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
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 perceiv’d;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d:
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
About this poem
Shakespeare’s sonnets were composed in the late 1590s and published in 1609. That edition, “Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” consisted of 154 sonnets, almost all written in the form of three quatrains and a couplet, which is now recognized as Shakespearean. This sonnet falls into the first group, sonnets 1-126, addressed to a beloved friend, a young man.
About William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon, England. Shakespeare was regarded as the foremost dramatist and poet of his time. In addition to his 154 sonnets, he wrote more than 30 plays. His first complete collection of work appeared as the First Folio in 1623, several years after his death. He died on April 23, 1616.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
This poem is in the public domain. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
