Photo by By Matthias Bethke – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=149793854

Dear Readers, my lovely friend was buried yesterday, and one of her many great passions was Shakespeare. I read this to her a few days before she died, and at the end she smiled, and whispered ‘marvellous’. If all has gone well, I will also have read this at her funeral. I love how the mood changes at line 10, from despair to exultation.

Farewell, my very special friend.

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.

If you want to hear a very special reading of it, have a listen to Judi Dench on the Graham Norton show here.