#readasonnet

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“Don’t Change On My Account” by Shel Silverstein (read by Rufus Sewell)

Michael Gaston started #readasonnet, challenging his friends and colleagues directly to share sonnets with the world. Now actors are performing sonnets (and not just by William Shakespeare) in their homes and putting them online to soothe us all in our isolation. (via Twitter)

Don’t Change On My Account by Shel Silverstein

If you’re sloppy, that’s just fine. If you’re moody, I won’t mind. If you’re fat, that’s fine with me. If you’re skinny, let it be. If you’re bossy, that’s all right. if you’re nasty, I won’t fight. If you’re rough, well that’s just you. If you’re mean, that’s all right too. Whatever you are is all okay. I don’t like you anyway.

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"I shall go back again to the bleak shore" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (Annabeth Gish)

"Michael Gaston started #readasonnet, challenging his friends and colleagues directly to share sonnets with the world. Now actors are performing sonnets (and not just by William Shakespeare) in their homes and putting them online to soothe us all in our isolation." (via Twitter)

"I shall go back again to the bleak shore" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shall go back again to the bleak shore And build a little shanty on the sand, In such a way that the extremest band Of brittle seaweed will escape my door But by a yard or two; and nevermore Shall I return to take you by the hand; I shall be gone to what I understand, And happier than I ever was before. The love that stood a moment in your eyes, The words that lay a moment on your tongue, Are one with all that in a moment dies, A little under-said and over-sung. But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies Unchanged from what they were when I was young.

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Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare (read by Sepideh Moafi)

"Michael Gaston started #readasonnet, challenging his friends and colleagues directly to share sonnets with the world. Now actors are performing sonnets (and not just by William Shakespeare) in their homes and putting them online to soothe us all in our isolation." (via Twitter)

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me prov'd,   I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

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Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare (read by Jenna Stern)

"Michael Gaston started #readasonnet, challenging his friends and colleagues directly to share sonnets with the world. Now actors are performing sonnets (and not just by William Shakespeare) in their homes and putting them online to soothe us all in our isolation." (via Twitter)

Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes by William Shakespeare

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

      For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

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Sonnet 66 by William Shakespeare (read by Mackenzie Astin)

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled

And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill:

  Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,   Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

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Sonnet 1 by William Shakespeare (by Vincent D'Onofrio)

"Michael Gaston started #readasonnet, challenging his friends and colleagues directly to share sonnets with the world. Now actors are performing sonnets (and not just by William Shakespeare) in their homes and putting them online to soothe us all in our isolation. "(via Twitter)

Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase by William Shakespeare

From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory;

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.

  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,   To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

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Sonnet 105 by William Shakespeare (read by Sebastian Arcelus)

"Michael Gaston started #readasonnet, challenging his friends and colleagues directly to share sonnets with the world. Now actors are performing sonnets (and not just by William Shakespeare) in their homes and putting them online to soothe us all in our isolation." (via Twitter)

Sonnet 105: Let not my love be called idolatry by William Shakespeare

Let not my love be called idolatry, Nor my beloved as an idol show, Since all alike my songs and praises be To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, Still constant in a wondrous excellence; Therefore my verse to constancy confined, One thing expressing, leaves out difference.

Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument, Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words; And in this change is my invention spent, Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.

  Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone,   Which three till now, never kept seat in one.

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"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe (by Xander Berkeley)

"Michael Gaston started #readasonnet, challenging his friends and colleagues directly to share sonnets with the world. Now actors are performing sonnets (and not just by William Shakespeare) in their homes and putting them online to soothe us all in our isolation." (via Twitter)

"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,   In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know   By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,   In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love—   I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,   In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling   My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came   And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,   Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,   In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night,   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love   Of those who were older than we—   Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above   Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,   In her sepulchre there by the sea—   In her tomb by the sounding sea.