Thoughts Poetical

Taken from avocadolove.

If you see this, post a poem in your own journal, if you feel like it.


Garden Roses After the Rain by ~Beboots on deviantART


Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.


I remember finding a flash video back in grade eleven with a man with a gorgeous voice reading this poem aloud with a few images - coral, roses, etc. - in time with the words... and it was the most gorgeous thing I'd seen, like, ever. And I never found that video again. But I still love the feel of this sonnet. You have to appreciate its message - and how it's parodying conventions of the time, but comes across as sincere. 

Plus, y'know, Shakespeare.