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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  “Full many a glorious morning”

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

V. Cautions and Complaints

“Full many a glorious morning”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

Sonnet XXXIII.

FULL many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine

With all-triumphant splendor on my brow;

But out, alack! he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.