Poetry Day - Lilies that fester
Another poem, because there is no such thing as too many poems. There hasn't been enough Shakespeare on this blog I have discovered. So, since I have mentioned previously Sonnet 94 as the title of a CS Lewis essay, I thought I'd post it here. This is often thought to be the most enigmatic of the sonnets. The praise for the character in the first eight lines doesn't ring entirely genuine, and it's not obvious to connect it to the next six lines. Supposedly it helps to sit this sonnet amongst those either side of it (and so a little context aids even Shakespeare). But aside from all that, the last two lines are quotable Shakespeare, and I readily use them out of context.
SONNET 94
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
William Shakespeare
Picture: Water lilies by Claude Monet from http://www.artinthepicture.com/paintings/Claude_Monet/Water-Lilies/