Sonnet LXXVI.

“Why is my verse so barren of new pride”

WHY is my verse so barren of new pride   
So far from variation or quick change?   
Why with the time do I not glance aside   
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?   
Why write I still all one, ever the same,            5
And keep invention in a noted weed,   
That every word doth almost tell my name,   
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?   
O! know, sweet love, I always write of you,   
And you and love are still my argument;     10
So all my best is dressing old words new,   
Spending again what is already spent:   
  For as the sun is daily new and old,   
  So is my love still telling what is told.   

Sonnet LXXVII.

“Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear”

THY glass will show thee how thy beauties wear   
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;   
These vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,   
And of this book this learning mayst thou taste.   
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show            5
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;   
Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know   
Time’s thievish progress to eternity.   
Look! what thy memory cannot contain,   
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find     10
Those children nursed, deliver’d from thy brain,   
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.   
  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,   
  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.   

Sonnet LXXVIII.

“So oft have I invok’d thee for my Muse”

SO oft have I invok’d thee for my Muse   
And found such fair assistance in my verse   
As every alien pen hath got my use   
And under thee their poesy disperse.   
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing            5
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,   
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing   
And given grace a double majesty.   
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,   
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:     10
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,   
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;   
  But thou art all my art, and dost advance   
  As high as learning my rude ignorance.   

Sonnet LXXIX.

“Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid”

WHILST I alone did call upon thy aid   
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;   
But now my gracious numbers are decay’d,   
And my sick muse doth give an other place.   
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument            5
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;   
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent   
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.   
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word   
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,     10
And found it in thy cheek; he can afford   
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.   
  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,   
  Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.   

Sonnet LXXX.

“O! how I faint when I of you do write”

O! HOW I faint when I of you do write   
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,   
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,   
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!   
But since your worth—wide as the ocean is,—            5
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,   
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,   
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.   
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,   
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;     10
Or, being wrack’d, I am a worthless boat,   
He of tall building and of goodly pride:   
  Then if he thrive and I be cast away,   
  The worst was this;—my love was my decay.   

Sonnet LXXXI.

“Or I shall live your epitaph to make”

OR I shall live your epitaph to make   
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;   
From hence your memory death cannot take,   
Although in me each part will be forgotten.   
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,            5
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:   
The earth can yield me but a common grave,   
When you entombed in men’s eyes shall lie.   
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,   
Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read;     10
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,   
When all the breathers of this world are dead;   
  You still shall live,—such virtue hath my pen,—   
  Where breath most breathes,—even in the mouths of men.   

Sonnet LXXXII.

“I grant thou wert not married to my Muse”

I GRANT thou wert not married to my Muse   
And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook   
The dedicated words which writers use   
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.   
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,            5
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;   
And therefore art enforc’d to seek anew   
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.   
And do so, love; yet when they have devis’d   
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,     10
Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized   
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;   
  And their gross painting might be better used   
  Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus’d.   

Sonnet LXXXIII.

“I never saw that you did painting need”

I NEVER saw that you did painting need   
And therefore to your fair no painting set;   
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed   
That barren tender of a poet’s debt:   
And therefore have I slept in your report,            5
That you yourself, being extant, well might show   
How far a modern quill doth come too short,   
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.   
This silence for my sin you did impute,   
Which shall be most my glory, being dumb;     10
For I impair not beauty being mute,   
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.   
  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes   
  Than both your poets can in praise devise.   

Sonnet LXXXIV.

“Who is it that says most? which can say more”

WHO is it that says most? which can say more   
Than this rich praise,—that you alone are you?   
In whose confine immured is the store   
Which should example where your equal grew.   
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell            5
That to his subject lends not some small glory;   
But he that writes of you, if he can tell   
That you are you, so dignifies his story,   
Let him but copy what in you is writ,   
Not making worse what nature made so clear,     10
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,   
Making his style admired every where.   
  You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,   
  Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.   

Sonnet LXXXV.

“My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still”

MY tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still   
Whilst comments of your praise, richly compil’d,   
Deserve their character with golden quill,   
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil’d.   
I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,            5
And, like unletter’d clerk, still cry ‘Amen’   
To every hymn that able spirit affords,   
In polish’d form of well-refined pen.   
Hearing you prais’d, I say ‘’Tis so, ’tis true,’   
And to the most of praise add something more;     10
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,   
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.   
  Then others for the breath of words respect,   
  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.