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To Wet a Widow's Eye

Song Cycle by Juriaan Andriessen (1925 - 1996)

?. Sonnet no. 9  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
  No love toward others in that bosom sits
  That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 9

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot) , no title, appears in Œuvres Complètes de Shakspeare Volume VIII, in Sonnets, no. 9, first published 1863
  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 9, first published 1857
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "E' forse per timore di pianto vedovile", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Sonnet no. 25  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
  Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
  Where I may not remove nor be removed.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 25

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 25, first published 1857
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Avvenga pure che chi alle stelle è gradito", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 226
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