Sonnets

Sonnet 8

Music to hear, why hear’st music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov’st that which receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married do offend ear,
They do but sweetly chide , who confounds
In singleness the parts that bear:
Mark how one string sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to , ‘ single wilt prove none’.

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See its words in the cloud.

Modern spelling for reading. The edition is public domain in the United States. Edition source.