William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Forget. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

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William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Forget

By William Shakespeare (1564–1616)


NO 1 longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 2
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not	5
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay, 3	10
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

Note 1. Sonnet lxxi. Shake-speare’s Sonnettes, 1609. Shakespeare goes back to the thought of his own death, from which he was led away by Sonnet lxvi., ending “To die, I leave my love alone.” The world in this sonnet is the “vile world” described in lxvi. (Dowden.) [back]

Note 2. The surly sullen bell: Cf. 2 King Henry IV., act i. sc. 1:

	a sullen bell,
	Remember’d knolling a departed friend.

[back]

Note 3. Compounded am with clay: Cf. 2 King Henry IV., act iv. sc. 5: “Only compound me with forgotten dust.” [back]

CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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