William Shakespeare's Sonnet # 106

 

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights;

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have expressed

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring,

And, for they looked but with divining eyes,

They had not still enough your worth to sing;

    For we, which now behold these present

days,

    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to

praise.

The poem with the stressed

syllables underlined:

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights;

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have expressed

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring,

And, for they looked but with divining eyes,

They had not still enough your worth to sing;

    For we, which now behold these present

days,

    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to

praise.

Comment:

Shakespeare's Sonnets seem more like

prayers when compared to Housman's

regular beat. The long pauses of un-

accented syllables create a meditative

somewhat irregular beat. The thought

expressed is simply that in the past

though people had impressive skills at

praising beauty and virtue, even they

could not describe accurately the beauty

and virtues of the speaker's beloved.

© C.A. MacLennan 2025