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  • Title: The Sonnets (Modern)
  • Editor: Michael Best

    • Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Michael Best
    Not Peer Reviewed

    The Sonnets (Modern)

    112576
    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?
    1130Why write I still all one, ever the same,
    And keep invention in a noted weed,
    That every word doth almost tell my name,
    Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
    Oh, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
    1135And you and love are still my argument:
    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.
    114077
    Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
    Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,
    The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
    And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
    1145The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
    Of mouthèd 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,
    1150Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
    Those children nursed, delivered 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.
    115578
    So oft have I invoked 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.
    1160Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
    And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
    Have added feathers to the learnèd's wing,
    And given grace a double majesty.
    Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
    1165Whose influence is thine, and born of thee;
    In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
    And arts with thy sweet graces gracèd be.
    But thou art all my art, and dost advance,
    As high as learning, my rude ignorance.
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