A Lover's Complaint: A Poem

By William Shakespeare

In this narrative poem, a young woman is seen crying by a river bed, tossing letters and gifts into the waters. When asked about her sorry state, the woman tells of how she was seduced into falling in love with a young man who ultimately abandoned her.

Known as “The Bard of Avon,” William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest English-language writer known. Enormously popular during his life, Shakespeare’s works continue to resonate more than three centuries after his death, as has his influence on theatre and literature. Shakespeare’s innovative use of character, language, and experimentation with romance as tragedy served as a foundation for later playwrights and dramatists, and some of his most famous lines of dialogue have become part of everyday speech.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Dec 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781443443630

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

Book preview

A LOVER’S COMPLAINT

William Shakespeare

HarperPerennial Classics

CONTENTS

A Lover’s Complaint

About the Author

About the Series

Copyright

About the Publisher

A Lover’s Complaint

From off a hill whose concave womb reworded

A plaintful story from a sist’ring vale,

My spirits t’ attend this double voice accorded,

And down I laid to list the sad-tun’d tale;

[5]

Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,

Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,

Storming her world with sorrow’s wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,

Which fortified her visage from the sun,

[10]

Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw

The carcase of a beauty spent and done.

Time had not scythed all that youth begun,

Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven’s fell rage,

Some beauty peep’d through lattice of sear’d