Sonnet 94 praises people who can hurt others but choose not to, then warns that when such admired people go bad, they become worse than those who were never admired at all.
Sonnet 94: Full Poem
They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
Text from the 1609 Quarto, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernized.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Sonnet 94 for quick reference.
What Sonnet 94 Means
Sonnet 94 describes a certain kind of person, praises them, and then shows what happens when that kind of person is corrupted.
The first quatrain sketches the type. These are people who have the power to hurt others and do not use it. They do not act on what their looks seem to promise. They stir feelings in others while staying unmoved themselves, like stone: cold, calm and slow to be tempted.
The second quatrain praises them. Such people rightly receive heaven’s blessings. They protect nature’s gifts from being wasted. They own and control their own faces, while everyone else merely manages their good qualities on someone else’s behalf.
The third quatrain changes subject to a flower. A summer flower is sweet to the summer, even if it lives and dies only for itself. But if that flower catches a foul infection, even the lowest weed will look finer than it does.
The couplet states the rule. The sweetest things become the sourest through what they do, and lilies that rot smell far worse than weeds. The poem never says whether the admired people of the first eight lines are in danger of becoming those lilies. It leaves the reader to make the connection.
Sonnet 94 Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Themes
Sonnet 94 is famous for refusing to say whether it is praise or criticism, and each of its themes can be read both ways.
Restraint or Coldness
The first quatrain describes people who could do harm and hold back. Read one way, that is self-mastery, the highest form of virtue. Read another way, the same lines describe someone who moves others while feeling nothing, “as stone, / Unmoved, cold.” The poem uses a single set of words for both portraits and does not tell the reader which one to see.
Owners and Stewards
Line 7 divides the world into “lords and owners” and “stewards.” An owner possesses; a steward manages property that belongs to someone else. The self-controlled are said to truly own their faces and gifts, while everyone else only looks after theirs. That can sound like a tribute to self-possession, or like a hierarchy in which the people who feel least are ranked highest.
The Corruption of the Best
The final six lines make the poem’s one unambiguous claim: the finer a thing is, the worse it becomes when it goes bad. A diseased flower is outshone by a weed, and a festering lily smells worse than any weed could. The claim is a warning aimed at excellence itself. Only the admired have that far to fall.
Form and Language
Sonnet 94 is built from two vocabularies, one of property and one of plants, and the switch between them is where its meaning turns.
Meter and Rhyme
The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Lines 5 and 7 end with an extra unstressed syllable, “graces” and “faces,” which gives the praise in the second quatrain a smooth, slightly ceremonial sound. The couplet, by contrast, ends on the blunt one-syllable rhyme of “deeds” and “weeds.”
The Missing “You”
Most of the Fair Youth sonnets speak to the young man as “you” or “thou.” Sonnet 94 speaks only of “they.” The speaker also never says “I.” That distance is part of the poem’s ambiguity: it reads like a general observation about a type of person, but in a sequence addressed to one young man, a general observation is hard to hear as general.
The Language of Property
The second quatrain is full of words about ownership and management: “inherit,” “husband,” “riches,” “expense,” “lords and owners,” “stewards.” The self-controlled are pictured as landowners who manage their estates well and waste nothing. The vocabulary is admiring on the surface, but it is also the vocabulary of wealth and rank, not of warmth.
The Flower and the Weed
At line 9 the poem drops the language of estates and turns to a summer flower. The flower “to itself” only lives and dies, just as the stone-like people keep to themselves, but it is sweet to the summer around it. Then comes “base infection,” and the flower is “outbraved,” outshone in splendor, by “the basest weed.” The repetition of “base” and “basest” makes the fall sharp: the infection is low, and so is the thing that now looks better than the flower.
“Lilies That Fester”
The final line works through smell rather than sight. A lily is a symbol of purity, and a festering one is the image of purity rotting. The line has the ring of a proverb, and it appears word for word in the play Edward III, published in 1596, which many scholars believe Shakespeare helped to write.
A Closer Reading
Sonnet 94 praises its subjects for being like stone, then quietly reclassifies them as flowers, and flowers can rot.
Look at the poem’s materials. The first quatrain says these people are “themselves as stone.” Stone is the right image for what is being praised: it is unmoved, cold, unaffected by temptation, and it cannot decay. The second quatrain builds on that permanence with the language of inheritance and estates, things that pass down intact. For eight lines, the self-controlled seem as durable as the qualities they are praised for.
Then the poem turns to “the summer’s flower.” Nothing in the text says the flower is the same as the people of the octave, but the description fits them closely. The flower “to itself” only lives and dies, as they are “themselves as stone.” It is sweet to others while living for itself, as they move others while staying unmoved. The poem has taken the same kind of person and changed the material. And unlike stone, a flower can catch an infection, and a lily can fester.
This is where the ambiguity of the praise becomes a precise warning. The key word in line 3 is “as”: they are not stone, only like it. The coldness that looks like permanence is a manner, laid over something organic and perishable. The people most admired for being unaffected are, underneath, as corruptible as anything that grows, and the couplet says their corruption will be the worst of all because it begins from the greatest sweetness.
Read this way, the poem does not have to choose between praise and criticism. The praise is sincere about what restraint looks like. The warning is sincere about what restraint may be hiding. The poem’s power comes from placing both in the same fourteen lines and letting the image change from stone to lily without comment.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Sonnet 94, answered briefly.
Who Is Sonnet 94 About?
The poem never says. It describes “they,” a type of person, but because it sits among the Fair Youth sonnets, most readers take it as an indirect portrait of the young man.
Is Sonnet 94 Praise or Criticism?
Both, and that is why it is among the most debated sonnets. The first eight lines can be read as sincere praise of self-control or as ironic criticism of coldness. The last six lines are a clear warning about what happens when admired people are corrupted.
What Does “Lords and Owners of Their Faces” Mean?
People in complete control of their own appearance and expressions, who never let their faces betray what they feel. The phrase can suggest admirable self-possession or a practiced mask.
Where Else Does “Lilies That Fester Smell Far Worse Than Weeds” Appear?
In the history play Edward III, published in 1596, where the same line appears word for word. Many scholars now believe Shakespeare wrote part of that play, though which work used the line first is uncertain.
What Does “Husband Nature’s Riches From Expense” Mean?
To protect nature’s gifts from being wasted. “Husband” as a verb meant to manage thriftily, and “expense” meant spending or squandering.
Related Sonnets
Three sonnets shed light on the figure Sonnet 94 describes and the danger it names.