HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! FSC Founding Member and Resident Scholar, Steve Buhler, on Sonnet 128

In Sonnet 128, Shakespeare playfully connects musical ability, social custom, and ardent longing. The speaker in the poem tells his beloved that he admires her skill and desires her person. He sketches a scene where she plays a keyboard instrument and he is moved by what he hears and sees. It's a regular occurrence since he comments that this happens “oft.” 

His hearing is charmed by the harmony she gently commands from the wires that are struck or plucked as she presses down on the wooden keys. Those keys – also called jacks – immediately rise back up, ready to be played again. The speaker pictures them as rival suitors, eager to kiss the lady's hands over and over. 

His solution to this problem (for him) and his proposal (to the lady) is to let the keys continue to kiss her sweet fingers but to let him kiss her lips instead. The language throughout the poem is just suggestive enough to communicate that the speaker would like to express his love with more than just kisses.

How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,

Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds

With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st

The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,

At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!

To be so tickled, they would change their state

And situation with those dancing chips,

O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.

Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.