Let those who are in favour with their stars. Of public honour and proud titles boast,Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most. Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread. But as the marigold at the sun's eye,And in themselves their pride lies buried,For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior famoused for fight,After a thousand victories once foil'd,Is from the book of honour razed quite,And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd: Then happy I, that love and am beloved. Where I may not remove nor be removed. Sonnet 25
Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds. Admit impediments. Love is not love. Which alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark. That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks. Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
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 damask'd, 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. Sonnet 130