Summer's Breath (Sonnet 54)

from Shakespeare's Sonnets Reborn (Demos) by Jonathan Salem Baskin

	/

lyrics

O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give. 
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.
 The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
 As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
 Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly 
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses: 

But, for their virtue only is their show, 
They live unwoo’d, and unrespected fade;
 Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made: 
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, 
When that shall vade, my verse distills your truth.

credits

from Shakespeare's Sonnets Reborn (Demos), released March 6, 2023
Lyrics: William Shakespeare
Music: Jonathan Salem Baskin

license

about

Jonathan Salem Baskin Chicago, Illinois

i'm a writer, musician, and science junkie.

contact / help

Contact Jonathan Salem Baskin

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Jonathan Salem Baskin, you may also like:

Laughing In My Sleep
by The Cradle

On his latest LP, Paco Cathcart sketches life in Brooklyn in remarkable detail. Bandcamp Album of the Day Aug 14, 2020
go to album
True Romance EP
by James Massiah

featured on Bandcamp Radio Apr 9, 2024
go to album
Domov, co nebyl
by ARANANAR

The dark, poetic second album from the duo of Adam "Aran" Nenadál and Anar Badalov is rich and meditative. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 19, 2023
go to album
Kosti
by ARANANAR

A collaborative ode to the mythology and culture of the Czech Republic, pairing meditative poetry with menacing sounds. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 12, 2022
go to album
Traveler's Ode
by Dao Strom

Portland's Dao Strom describes her work as "song poems," gorgeously layered dark ambient folk soundscapes with a heavy sense of foreboding. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 6, 2020
go to album
Regards to the End
by Emily Wells

NYC polymath Wells develops rich, layered modern-classical compositions into reflections on queerness, climate change, and the AIDS crisis. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 18, 2022
go to album
All the Roads that Lead Us Home [2015 Album]
by Gaelynn Lea

Gaelynn Lea won NPR's Tiny Desk Contest, and it's easy to see why. Haunting, beautiful country songs, laced up with weeping fiddle lines. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 3, 2016
go to album