English Wordplay ~ Listen and Enjoy

Sonnet 33

A. L. Rowse in his Shakespeare's Sonnets writes: The Elizabethans often called the hills of the West Country, mountains. We need go no further than the Cotswolds for the mountain-tops that Shakespeare had often seen touched with the morning sun.


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 splendour on my brow;
But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
  Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
  Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

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