“Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen” Introduction

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“Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen” Summary

“Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen” Themes

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  Love and Forgiveness

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• 

  The Pain of Disappointment and Disillusionment

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen”

• Lines 1-2

  Full many a glorious morning have I seen
  Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 3-4

  Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
  Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-6

  Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
  With ugly rack on his celestial face,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-8

  And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
  Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-12

  Even so my sun one early morn did shine
  With all-triumphant splendour on my brow;
  But out, alack! he was but one hour mine,
  The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-14

  Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
  Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

  

  

  

  

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“Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Parallelism

  

  

  

  

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• Pun

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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“Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Full many
• Sovereign
• Gilding
• Alchemy
• Anon
• Basest
• Rack
• Celestial
• Forlorn
• Visage
• Stealing
• All-triumphant
• Out, Alack!
• Region
• No Whit

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen” Speaker

“Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen”

More “Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Original Poem — Check out what the poem looked like when first published in 1609.

  • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to the great Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale read this poem aloud.

  • The Sonnet in Context — Read about how this poem might relate to some of the other sonnets in the "Fair Youth" sequence.

  • The Fair Youth — Learn more about the "Fair Youth" sequence—the group of Shakespeare's sonnets addressed to a young man. 

  • A Short Biography — Learn more about Shakespeare's life and work.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Shakespeare

  • Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

  • Sonnet 129: Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame

  • Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time

  • Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

  • Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth

  • Sonnet 141: In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes

  • Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still

  • Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

  • Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws

  • Sonnet 20: A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

  • Sonnet 27: "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed"

  • Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

  • Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

  • Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air and purging fire

  • Sonnet 55: Not marble nor the gilded monuments

  • Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore

  • Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")

  • Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead

  • Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

  • Sonnet 94: "They that have power to hurt"