They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
So we’ve skipped ahead, (just a few ). I can’t remember where I first read this poem, but it was in the front of a crime novel, several years ago. It’s the couplet at the end that stayed with me, and that’s really where Lily got her name from. Even if the rest of the poem goes over your head, the last two lines are pretty clear.
Lily is also a bit of an anti-Mavis, the fairy from the Willo the Wisp cartoon who always seemed to be skipping through the forest, (but Lily has slightly more of an Edna edge ).
So as Lily loves Shakespeare’s sonnets and the next Land of the Fey book is about her. I thought it would be nice to have a regular delve into the work of the Bard. So every Sunday I’ll post a sonnet. Also if you think about Lily reading these to Alaric as he lay in the infirmary, some of them would cut quite close to the bone.
1
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,
Thy self 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.
There is a wonderful website shakespeares-sonnets.com which has commentary on the various sonnets and delves deeper into the meaning behind them. I’ve added a link to this site in the sidebar.
). I can’t remember where I first read this poem, but it was in the front of a crime novel, several years ago. It’s the couplet at the end that stayed with me, and that’s really where Lily got her name from. Even if the rest of the poem goes over your head, the last two lines are pretty clear.
Posted by SarahL 
Posted by SarahL 