Sonnet XXI
So is it not with me as with that Muse,Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse,Who heaven itself for ornament doth useAnd every fair with his fair doth rehearse,Making a couplement of proud compare.With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems,With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare,That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.O! let me, true in love, but truly write,And then believe me, my love is as fairAs any mother’s child, though not so brightAs those gold candles fix’d in heaven’s air:Let them say more that like of hearsay well;I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
Words in this poem
- couplement n.
- Union; combination; a coupling; a pair. [Cf. OF. couplement.]
- rondure n.
- A round; a circle. [Cf. F. rondeur roundness.]
- hearsay n.
- Report; rumor; fame; common talk; something heard from another.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet XXI is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #1041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Shakespeare, Sonnet XXI, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-21.html, id L00039.
Form and metre
Sonnet XXI is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGG museA · verseB · useA · rehearseB · compareC · gemsD · rareC · hemsD · writeE · fairF · brightE · airF · wellG · sellG
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| So is it not with me as with that Muse, | 10 | ·········· |
| Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Who heaven itself for ornament doth use | 10 | ·/˘/·/˘˘·· |
| And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Making a couplement of proud compare. | 10 | /˘·/˘˘··˘/ |
| With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, | 10 | ·········· |
| With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare, | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| O! let me, true in love, but truly write, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And then believe me, my love is as fair | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| As any mother’s child, though not so bright | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| As those gold candles fix’d in heaven’s air: | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Let them say more that like of hearsay well; | 10 | ·······/·· |
| I will not praise that purpose not to sell. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.