“Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all…”

William Shakespeare, Sonnet XL

“There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb

The crowns o’ the world: O eyes sublime

With tears and laughter for all time!”

Elizabeth Barrett browning, 19th Century English Poet

For all time, indeed!

More than four centuries after they were written, William Shakespeare’s works are still as revered and beloved as ever.

Though today Shakespeare is perhaps best known for his plays, it was his eloquent and searing poetry that garnered the most acclaim during his own lifetime. It is believed that he composed most of his 154 sonnets – fourteen-line poems written in iambic pentameter and ending with a couplet – during the early to mid-1590’s, before he found success as a playwright. At the time, it was a fad among the wealthy gentry to act as benefactors to struggling writers. The resulting poems were typically seen by only a select few among the intellectual elite, but those who read Shakespeare’s works agreed that they were remarkable!

Despite such praise, however, they weren’t published as a complete collection to be sold to the general public until many years after they were written, in 1609.

Often referred to as “love sonnets,” the poems eloquently illustrate a myriad of universal experiences – both good and the not-so-good.

On this day, affectionately devoted to love,

– St. Valentines Day –

may your own heart discover the beauty of the love surrounding you!

And I do hope

that perhaps

you’ll be able to pair it with one of

Shakespeare’s wonderful Sonnets, too.

“O, how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!

But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,

The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy barque, inferior far to his,

On your broad main doth willfully appear.

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat

whilst he upon our soundless deep doth ride;

Or, being wrecked, I am a worthless boat,

He of tall building and of goodly pride:

Then if he thrive and I be cast away,

The worst was this: my love was my decay.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXXX

hugs n’ blessings for all those seeking the right words to say, today!

My beloved is mine.

Song of Solomon 2:16