Sonnet · Nature
Sonnet 128: How oft when thou, my music, music play'st
How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
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“Sonnet 128: How oft when thou, my music, music play'st” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-128
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 128: How oft when thou, my music, music play'st
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Nature, Love, Autumn
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Shakespeare1564–1616
- Source record
- PoetryDBSonnet 128: How oft when thou, my music, music play'st by william-shakespeare, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 c1a19e2ee69d9089…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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