May 28, 2020
The Sonnet Sessions continue (with apologies for the audio
issues this week!)
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William Shakespeare, Sonnet
XII
When I do
count the clock that tells the time,
And see the
brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I
behold the violet past prime,
And sable
curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty
trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst
from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s
green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the
bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy
beauty do I question make,
That thou
among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets
and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as
fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make
defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee
hence.
Music:
Ralph Vaughan Williams,
“Fantasia on Greensleeves“, from Sir John in Love, opera
adapted from William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of
Windsor, 1928