Sonnet 55

William Shakespeare

Teacher card

Form: sonnet
Published: 1609, in Shakespeare's Sonnets
Length: 14 lines, 106 words, 1 word in 11 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 7–8. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: love, thanks
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

Not marble, nor the gilded monumentsOf princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;But you shall shine more bright in these contentsThan unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.When wasteful war shall statues overturn,And broils root out the work of masonry,Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burnThe living record of your memory.’Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmityShall you pace forth; your praise shall still find roomEven in the eyes of all posterityThat wear this world out to the ending doom.So, till the judgement that yourself arise,You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

William Shakespeare (died 1616), Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609), lines 956–969 of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.

What to do with it

One link and one task line for each activity. Send a student the one you want them to do, or print this page and hand it round; each link has a QR code.

Its lines are dealt for names in posy cardsin posy · 14 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See how posy takes lines from this poem, then make a card for someone using them.
See how posy takes lines from this poem, then make a card for someone using them.
posy.popplepoetry.com/sources#sh-55

Send the whole hand-out

This page’s link. Students open it, read the text and pick what to do; nothing asks them to sign in.

Link for the whole text

https://popplepoetry.com/find/shakespeare-sonnet-55 · popplepoetry.com