Laurie Klein Reads Sonnet 18

Editor’s Note: “Poems to Listen By” is an audio series where over time we will explore some of the themes in the Poet Laura checklist, as well as Tweetspeak’s “Perspective” theme throughout 2022.

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Poems to Listen By: Time Lines—1 Sonnet 18

Presented by Laurie Klein

Welcome to “Poems to Listen By.” I’m Laurie Klein, and I’m back today with a new series: “Time Lines.”

I love the way a good poem ushers us into a luminous pause. It beckons us, perhaps offers an idea or truth newly illumined. And this takes time. Like light takes time to reach us. Is sunshine brightening your day? Science tells us it’s already 8 minutes and 20 seconds old.

Or perhaps you’re listening at night, by a window. That gleam from earth’s nearest star, Proxima Centauri, takes four years to reach us.

Roughly four centuries ago, William Shakespeare would have lit a candle, by night, while penning sonnets. He numbered rather than titled them, from 1 to 154. They address love and loss, art and aging, time and the timeless.

Forty-some years ago, my beloved mentor, friend, and colleague, Pat Stien, guided my first attempts to read Shakespeare aloud. Now in her mid-nineties, Pat joins me today. I’ll read a sonnet, then she’ll read one.

But first, here’s Pat, with a riddle:

“I can bring tears to your eyes, or make you smile; reverse time, resurrect the dead. I take shape in an instant and last a life time. What am I?”

If you guessed “a memory,” you nailed it.

Listen now for love’s memory of youth and beauty, in Sonnet 18.

XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft’ is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can handle, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

—William Shakespeare

Moving now from that metaphorical summer’s day in the relationship to late autumn, the speaker again addresses the beloved. As Pat reads Sonnet 73, you’ll hear her clock tick in the background—an unplanned effect, but gently fitting.

LXXIII

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

—William Shakespeare

Thank you, Pat. Another famous lover, King Solomon, once said: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to search, and a time to give up as lost.”

The influence of those who mentor us continues, even after they’re gone. Things they taught us, things they said —these, too, are time lines. Perhaps it’s time to reconnect with yours. A letter, a call, a poem, a prayer . . .

You’ve just heard Sonnets 18 and 73, by William Shakespeare and Ecclesiastes 3:6. I’m Laurie Klein. And I’m Pat Stien. Thanks for listening.

Photo by Gabriel Caparó, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 73 are in the public domain. Audio and script by Laurie Klein with special thanks to Pat Stien for her participation and years of mentoring. “Simple Gifts” (public domain). Musical performance, recording, and mastering, by Bill Klein.

Learn more about Shakespeare and various theories proposed on possible identities for the characters.

Browse more Shakespeare sonnets

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Laurie Klein

Laurie Klein inherited her mother's passion for reading aloud. Despite mispronouncing "manure" in Mrs. Englebert's 4th grade class—to hooting derision from classmates as she read Charlotte's Web—she later pursued Theatre Arts at Whitworth University, in Spokane, Washington. "Can you teach me to play 100 characters?" she asked. They did. To this day, Professor Emeritus Pat Stien (now 93), continues to mentor Laurie (soon-to-be 69). As with writing, one never masters the art. Laurie's performance credits stateside and abroad include plays, one-woman shows, storytelling events, poetry readings, audiobooks, videos, and spoken word recordings for albums and public radio.

Latest posts by Laurie Klein (see all)

• Poems to Listen By: Yondering—2: A Very Little Thing - November 20, 2024
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• Poems to Listen By: Buoyancies—7: The Survivor Rises - August 28, 2024