Welcome to Poem of the Week, an annual feature on this blog that celebrates National Poetry Month. Every Sunday, in the month of April, start the week off with an uplifting poem and discovery why poetry still matters.
Although things may be returning to some normalcy, poetry can still provide us the comfort and solace we need during these trying times. Poetry is such an amazing and inspiration genre to take part in and National Poetry Month is great to discover its powerful impact. So let these words move you…you will not regret it.
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou are old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’s it cold.
To discover more poems, please visit Poetry Foundation
You can read more of William Shakespeare’s sonnets on Project Gutenberg:
cup of tea with that book, please 