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Sonnet · Nature

Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck

by William Shakespeare

1Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;

2And yet methinks I have astronomy,

3But not to tell of good or evil luck,

4Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;

5Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,

6Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,

7Or say with princes if it shall go well

8By oft predict that I in heaven find:

9But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

10And constant stars in them I read such art

11As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive,

12If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert';

13 Or else of thee this I prognosticate:

14 'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'

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Quick facts

Poem
Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck
Poet
William Shakespeare
Length
14 lines
Form
Sonnet
Themes
Nature, Peace

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).
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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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 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck 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 ecdef75cdc0dabde
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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