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Sonnet · Nature

Sonnet 128: How oft when thou, my music, music play'st

by William Shakespeare

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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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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