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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  147. Sonnets iii

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Shakespeare. 1564–1616

147. Sonnets iii

WHEN to the Sessions of sweet silent thought 
I summon up remembrance of things past, 
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste: 
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,         5
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, 
And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancell’d woe, 
And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight: 
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er  10
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan, 
Which I new pay as if not paid before. 
  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, 
  All losses are restored and sorrows end.