Sonnet · Childhood
Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-8
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Childhood, War & Remembrance
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
- Lines run 10-11 syllables (median 11). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a sonnet, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
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 8: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? 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 f284e0f54985cf7a…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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