Sonnet 1 Sonnet 3 Sonnet 12 Sonnet 18 Sonnet 19 Sonnet 20 Sonnet 29 Sonnet 30 Sonnet 33 Sonnet 55 Sonnet 60 Sonnet 65 Sonnet 71 Sonnet 73 Sonnet 94 Sonnet 106 Sonnet 116 Sonnet 126 Sonnet 127 Sonnet 129 Sonnet 130 Sonnet 138 Sonnet 144 Sonnet 146 Sonnet 147

Sonnet 55

Original Text

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.

Modern English

Not marble, not the gold-plated monuments of princes, will outlast this powerful poem; you will shine more brilliantly in these lines than on a gravestone left unswept, smeared by the slow filth of time.

Original Text

When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory.

Modern English

When destructive wars topple statues, and battles reduce fine masonry to rubble, neither the sword of Mars nor the quick fire of war will burn the living record that keeps your memory alive.

Original Text

’Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.

Modern English

Against death and the oblivion that erases everything you will walk forward; your praise will still find a place in the eyes of every generation that comes after, all the way to the last day the world will ever see.

Original Text

So, till the judgement that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

Modern English

So, until the judgment that raises you up yourself, you live in this poem, and in the eyes of everyone who loves.

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Sonnet 55

Sonnet 55