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Shakespeare's Sonnets

By William Shakespeare

This text focuses exclusively on contemporary criticism of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Aprroaches range from new historicism to the new bibliography, from formalism to feminism, from recept to history to cultural materialism.

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Edition
Project Gutenberg eBook #1041 — English text of the 1609 sonnets
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44 jurisdictions · latest check 31 Aug 2026

author William Shakespeare died 1616. All identified copyright-relevant edition contributors are beyond the conservative expiry cutoff applied from the cited jurisdictional duration rule as of 2026-08-31.

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Shakespeare's Sonnets

XLVII

William Shakespeare

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish’d for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast, And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest, And in his thoughts of love doth share a part: So, either by thy picture or my love, Thyself away, art present still with me; For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, And I am still with them, and they with thee; Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eye’s delight.

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