Sonnet · Childhood
Sonnet 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
1Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
2Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
3Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
4Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
5And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
6Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
7Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
8Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
9But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
10Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
11The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
12From his low tract, and look another way:
13 So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:
14 Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son.
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“Sonnet 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-7
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Childhood
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 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light 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 06468f914b395996…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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