“Sonnet 32: If thou survive my well-contented day” by William Shakespeare

If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bettering of the time,
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
“Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage:
But since he died, and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love.”

This sonnet is fairly straight-forward and does not require a lot of analysis. It is another in the fair youth series, where Shakespeare professes his love to the young man.

In this poem, Shakespeare contemplates the fact that he will likely die before the youth, leaving behind nothing but his poems. Here Shakespeare entreats the youth not to judge the poems solely on the merit and quality of the penmanship, which he humbly claims is not as good as his contemporaries, but instead to judge the poems based upon the love for the youth which is conveyed through the words. For me, this is what makes Shakespeare’s sonnets great—their ability to express emotion in such a way that the reader cannot help but feel the love and passion that the writer felt when crafting his lines.

As always, thank you for taking the time to share in my musings.