Tag Archives: To My Former Self (with Shakespeare’s introductions)

Sonnet XVIII: A Winter’s Day

Posted by David Emeron on

I shan’t thee to a summer’s day compare;
Thou lov’st not temp’rate climes I yet disdain.
Cold shake thy searing winds I find as fair:
For, over most creation, cold doth reign.

Yet burn thou bright and hot as Heaven’s eye;
And cold and dark, as dark is Neptune’s Lair;
And nary cold may pale nor fade to die
Thy nature’s spark so hidden unaware.

So is this edge infinity for me:
And shalt thou–changeless ’til the edge of time,
Whilst draw my breath, and know mine eyes foresee–
Remain, ’til death shall take me, in thy prime.

Then fades’ thy mem’ry’s pain; for few men see
Such life these lines contain, these give to thee.

David Emeron

This sonnet is part of a short, or
possibly at some point, very long
sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet XVIII: (William Shakespeare)

Posted by David Emeron on

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet VI: Ten Thousand Treasures

Posted by David Emeron on

Ere winter’s sweetest place distils to night,
Posterity could speak ten thousand times,
Make not forbidden, those that willing fight;
Deface thy ragged killer for its crimes!

Should one refigure life, if not some loan,
Too much the sum in use: art thou contrite?
Depart with usury and pay to own,
And let thy summer’s beauty be thy right.

Another treasure then if make thine heir,
Not e’er time’s hand made e’er thy leaving known;
And treasure done thyself, or bred, were fair,
All happier of thee than thee outshone.

What vial of Death bewitching dreams prepare?
Self-conquest warms thee, vile Death to dare!

This sonnet is part of a short, or
possibly at some point, very long
sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet VI: (William Shakespeare)

Posted by David Emeron on

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-kill’d.

That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

Sonnet V: The Blessings of God’s Anointed

Posted by David Emeron on

Gaze upon me, O Lovely, and beware,
Or as thy frosts unfairly come, rejoice.
Fair-play with fortune will confound Despair
That, hideous with pride, hath shown its voice.

For never-resting, God’s anointed here
Excel: to verse thy numbered days, to bear
This hell, and lend thee summer; pray to year
Thy days, and keep thee and thy children fair.

In they, our seasons, prisoners are we–
As checked, and sapped, and pent: as tyrants fear
All eyes the beauty we distil may see–
Who gift these days to winter they who sneer:

Though thieving Time all substance yet destroys,
We left thee more than wretched He enjoys.

  • Rededicated to the men and women
    of Sierra Sciences in whose work
    I am in a unique position
    to feel great appreciation
  • David Emeron
    Originally written
    to my younger self

This sonnet is part of a short, or
possibly at some point, very long
sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet V: (William Shakespeare)

Posted by David Emeron on

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:

For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap check’d with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’ersnow’d and bareness every where:

Then, were not summer’s distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:

But flowers distill’d though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

Sonnet IV:

Posted by David Emeron on

Wilt spend thou Nature’s battle unaware
And lend thy loveliness when thou agree
To legacy–or Heaven as thou dare?
This battle, free to lose;  for the degree

That this abuse could bounteous appear;
To use this matchless contest; wouldst thou care
To give thy future someone to revere?
To live, what legacy wouldst thou prepare?

Thyself, as though alone reflected are;
No epigone–when fall thyself so near–
To traffic nature’s call?  Deceive and scar
This battlement to leave to thy frontier!

In this way, bring thee over from afar,
And what might be thine image, to a star.

This sonnet is part of a short, or
possibly at some point, very long
sequence; click here to read it all: