Sonnet 33
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
disappointment
beauty
nature
forgiveness
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
What It Means
A perfect morning when the sun illuminates everything — then clouds cover it and it sulks behind them all day. Shakespeare uses this as a metaphor for the young man's behavior. Something happened. The young man shone on Shakespeare and then withdrew. Shakespeare says he can't be too angry: even the sun goes behind a cloud sometimes. But the hurt is there in the subtext. The 'region cloud' — low clouds, not the noble upper sky — is a hint that it was an ignoble thing that caused the withdrawal.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. Sonnet 33 is generally read as the first indication of some estrangement or wrong done to Shakespeare by the young man.
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