Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets episodes

  • Sonnet 034: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
    Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
    And make me travel forth without my cloak,
    To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,
    Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
    ‘Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
    To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
    For no man well of such a salve can speak,
    That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
    Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
    Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
    The offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief
    To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.
    Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
    And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    21 min
  • Sonnet 033: Full many a glorious morning have I seen
    Full many a glorious morning have I seen
    Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
    Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
    Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
    Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
    With ugly rack on his celestial face,
    And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
    Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
    Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
    With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
    But out, alack, he was but one hour mine,
    The region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.
    Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
    Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 min
  • Sonnet 032: If thou survive my well-contented day
    If thou survive my well-contented day,
    When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover
    And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
    These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
    Compare them with the bett’ring of the time,
    And though they be outstripped by every pen,
    Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
    Exceeded by the height of happier men.
    O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
    ‘Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,
    A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
    To march in ranks of better equipage:
    But since he died and poets better prove,
    Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love’.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    17 min
  • Sonnet 031: Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts
    Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
    Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
    And there reigns Love, and all Love’s loving parts,
    And all those friends which I thought buried.
    How many a holy and obsequious tear
    Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye,
    As interest of the dead, which now appear
    But things remov’d that hidden in thee lie!
    Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
    Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
    Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
    That due of many now is thine alone:
    Their images I lov’d, I view in thee,
    And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 min
  • Sonnet 030: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
    When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
    I summon up remembrance of things past,
    I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
    And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
    Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
    For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
    And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
    And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
    Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
    And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
    The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
    Which I new pay as if not paid before.
    But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
    All losses are restored and sorrows end.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    22 min
  • Sonnet 029: When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes
    When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
    I all alone beweep my outcast state,
    And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
    And look upon myself and curse my fate,
    Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
    Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,
    Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
    With what I most enjoy contented least.
    Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
    Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
    Like to the lark at break of day arising
    From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
    For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    18 min
  • Sonnet 028: How can I then return in happy plight
    How can I then return in happy plight,
    That am debarred the benefit of rest?
    When day’s oppression is not eas’d by night,
    But day by night and night by day oppress’d,
    And each, though enemies to either’s reign,
    Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
    The one by toil, the other to complain
    How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
    I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,
    And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
    So flatter I the swart-complexion’d night,
    When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.
    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
    And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    19 min
  • Sonnet 027: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed
    Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
    The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
    But then begins a journey in my head
    To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
    For then my thoughts–from far where I abide–
    Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
    And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
    Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
    Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
    Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
    Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
    Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
    Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
    For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    22 min
  • Sonnet 026: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
    Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
    Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
    To thee I send this written embassage,
    To witness duty, not to show my wit:
    Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
    May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
    But that I hope some good conceit of thine
    In thy soul’s thought, all naked, will bestow it:
    Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
    Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
    And puts apparel on my tottered loving,
    To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 min
  • Sonnet 025: Let those who are in favour with their stars
    Let those who are in favour with their stars
    Of public honour and proud titles boast,
    Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
    Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.
    Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread
    But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
    And in themselves their pride lies buried,
    For at a frown they in their glory die.
    The painful warrior famoused for fight,
    After a thousand victories once foiled,
    Is from the book of honour razed quite,
    And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
    Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
    Where I may not remove nor be removed.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 min

About Shakespeare’s Sonnets

From the publisher's feed

The 154 sonnets that Shakespeare penned are some of the most famous in the world. But have you ever heard them all? This podcast series will take you through them one by one in easy 15 minute…