Fame wilts like a marigold at dusk, says Sonnet 25; love stays put
Princes' favourites bloom only while the royal sun smiles on them, and a celebrated soldier can lose everything after one defeat. In Sonnet 25 Shakespeare sets public glory against private love and declares himself the lucky one: a man who loves, is loved back, and cannot be dislodged.
The poem begins by conceding the field. Let people blessed by fortune brag of honours and grand titles, the speaker says; luck has barred him from such triumphs, and he takes quiet, unexpected joy in what he values most. The modesty is strategic. By the end, the losers in this comparison will be the very people he seems to envy.
The second quatrain offers a botanical image of court life. Favourites of great princes open their petals like the marigold, which spreads only while the sun looks at it. Their pride is buried within themselves, and a single frown from the ruler is enough to end their glory. Status that depends on someone else's gaze can vanish the instant that gaze turns away.
Soldiers fare no better. A warrior made famous by fighting, beaten once after a thousand victories, finds his name scraped out of the book of honour, and every other deed he laboured for is forgotten. The couplet then springs the reversal: "Then happy I, that love and am belov'd," a man whose place can neither be taken away nor abandoned. The rhyme of removal on both sides makes the bond sound mutual and fixed.
Shakespeare knew both obscurity and acclaim. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon to John Shakespeare, a glover and alderman, and Mary Arden, from a well-off landowning family, he was baptised on 26 April 1564, the third of eight children. His birthday is traditionally kept on 23 April, partly because he died on that date in 1616. He probably studied Latin authors at the King's New School in Stratford, though no attendance records survive, and he wrote most of his known works between 1589 and 1613.
Source: Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars
