Poem of the Day: ‘Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun’
Though Shakespeare’s sonnets and dramatic works justly receive ongoing acclaim, the songs he composed, to be sung by characters in the plays, deserve attention as well.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is particularly celebrated in April, his birth and death day both falling, according to legend if not actual fact, on the twenty-third. Though of course his sonnets and dramatic works justly receive ongoing acclaim, the songs he composed, to be sung by characters in the plays, deserve attention as well. “Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun” occurs in one of the “problem plays,” Cymbeline. The disguised heroine Imogen’s two brothers sing this dirge over her supposed corpse. The song’s theme, expressed in a common-meter sestet with an ababcc rhyme scheme, is: better dead than suffering the inevitable cruelties of life, which is short enough anyway.
Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun
by William Shakespeare
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
___________________________________________
With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, The Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.
