“There are a thousand ways to love a poem. The best poets make up new ways, and the new ways mostly take getting used to.~Donald Hall

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Now this one is my favorite Shakespeare sonnet! That’s the sense of humor I’ve got—and have passed on to my urchins, for better or for worse. Drama Daughter says no one understands her sense of (somewhat sarcastic) humor, but I think she and Will would have gotten along just fine.

And it ends on a gentle, almost plaintive, note: I believe my love is just as precious and special as any of those so-called beauties who get all the cliched accolades. By heaven.

I found a video for this one, too, with Snape, or Colonel Brandon as I like to call him since I don’t know Snape, aka Alan Rickman reading the sonnet: