Happy BirthdayWilliam Shakespeare
Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day
April 23, 2008
52
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-lockèd treasure,
The which he will not ev’ry hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since seldom coming in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placèd are,
Or captain jewels in the carconet*.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special blest,
By new unfolding his imprison’d pride.
Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.
William Shakespeare
1609
April 23 is celebrated as Shakespeare’s birthday.
If alive, he would be 444 years old today.
He died on April 23, 1616.
* A carconet was a style of necklace with a
large jewel at the bottom center, other
smaller jewels in the rest of the necklace.
Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for National Poetry Month
April 23, 2008
Sonnet 54
O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it lye
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their vitue only is their show
They live unwoo’d, and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet death are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauetous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, by verse distils your truth
