Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthened, Though More Weak in Seeming
Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthened, Though More Weak in Seeming - fact Summary
First Printed in 1609
Sonnet 102 is one of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets first printed in the 1609 quarto titled Shakespeare's Sonnets. It is addressed within the collection dedicated to "Mr. W. H." and follows the English sonnet form. The poem explains the speaker’s deliberate restraint in outward demonstrations of love: affection remains strong though public praise diminishes, likened to a summer bird whose singing fades not from loss of pleasure but from repetition and commonness.
Read Complete AnalysesMy love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear; That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere. Our love was new, and then but in the spring When I was wont to greet it with my lays, As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing, And stops her pipe in growth of riper days Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild music burthens every bough, And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.