Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
William Shakespeare's name is synonymous with many of the famous lines he wrote in his
plays and prose. Yet his poems are not nearly as recognizable to many as the characters
and famous monologues from his many plays.

In Shakespeare's era (1564-1616), it was not profitable but very fashionable to write poetry.
It also provided credibility to his talent as a writer and helped to enhance his social standing.
It seems writing poetry was something he greatly enjoyed and did mainly for himself at
times when he was not consumed with writing a play. Because of their more private nature,
few poems, particularly long-form poems, have been published.

The two longest works that scholars agree were written by Shakespeare are entitled Venus
and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Both dedicated to the Honorable Henry Wriothesley,
Earl of Southampton, who seems to have acted as a sponsor and encouraging benefactor
of Shakespeare's work for a brief time.

Both of these poems contain dozens of stanzas and comment on the depravity of unwanted
sexual advances, showing themes throughout of guilt, lust, and moral confusion. In Venus
and Adonis, an innocent Adonis must reject the sexual advances of Venus. Conversely
in The Rape of Lucrece, the honorable and virtuous wife Lucrece is raped a character
overcome with lust, Tarquin. The dedication to Wriothesley is much warmer in the second
poem, suggesting a deepening of their relationship and Shakespeare's appreciation of his
support.

A third and shorter narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, was printed in the first collection of
Shakespeare's sonnets. Most scholars agree now that it was also written by Shakespeare,
though that was contested for some time. The poem tells the story of a young woman who
is driven to misery by a persuasive suitor's attempts to seduce her. It is not regarded by
critics to be his finest work.

Another short poem, The Phoenix and the Turtle, despairs the death of a legendary phoenix
and his faithful turtle dove lover. It speaks to the frailty of love and commitment in a world
where only death is certain.

There are 152 short sonnets attributed to Shakespeare. Among them, the most famous
ones are Sonnet 29, Sonnet 71, and Sonnet 55. As a collection, narrative sequence of his
Sonnets speaks to Shakespeare's deep insecurity and jealousy as a lover, his grief at
separation, and his delight in sharing beautiful experiences with his romantic counterparts.
However, few scholars believe that the sequence of the sonnets accurately depicts the
order in which they were written. Because Shakespeare seemed to write primarily for his
own private audience, dating these short jewels of literature has been next to impossible.

Within the sonnets Shakespeare seems to have two deliberate series: one describing his all
consuming lust for a married woman with a dark complexion (the Dark Lady), and one about
his confused love feelings for a handsome young man (the Fair Youth). This dichotomy
has been widely studied and debated and it remains unclear as to if the subjects
represented real people or two opposing sides to Shakespeare's own personality.

Though some of Shakespeare's poetry was published without his permission in his lifetime,
in texts such as The Passionate Pilgrim, the majority of the sonnets were published in 1609
by Thomas Thorpe. Before that time, it appears that Shakespeare would only have shared
his poetry with a very close inner-circle of friends and loved ones. Thorpe's collection was
the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic work to be printed before his death.

Critics have praised the sonnets as being profoundly intimate and meditating on the values
of love, lust, procreation, and death. Nowaday, Shakespeare is ranked as all-time most
popular English poets on history, along with Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Walt
Whitman.