Sonnet 23 By William Shakespeare

As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love’s right,
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,
O, charged with burthen of mine own love’s might.
O, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast;
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more express’d.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.


‌In the sonnet, the speaker is not able to satisfactorily speak of his love, because of the vitality of his feelings. He differentiates himself from an actor onstage who is blown by fear and cannot perform his part, or like a vicious beast or a passionate human filled with rage, and whose over-flowing emotion overthrows the expression of it. He forgets the exact words that the ceremonies of love deserve.
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‌The passion of his love seems to fall apart, as it is over-burdened with emotion. So he motivates his young friend to read and then react to the poet's written manners of his love. The sonnet ends with the paradoxes — books that cannot speak will speak, if eyes will hear.
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‌The metaphor of the actor has brought out biographical attention and comment. Shakespeare uses a metaphor from the theatre to convey the idea of the speaker's impotence in conducting the "ceremony of love’s right".

Instead, the lover must read beyond such a performance, and read “between the lines” to understand the poet's love, as is implied in the silences between the words. This sonnet seems to indicate the limits of language. When have we had enough words to express our love-being the same reason still poets write about love.
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