William Shakespeare, Sonnet lxxvi
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
4
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed, [*]
That every word doth almost tell my name,
8
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;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
12
Spending again what is already spent;
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
Notes
line 6: A noted weed -- a dress known and familiar, through being always the same. [ Back to text ]
Most notes to Shakespeare's sonnets are from Charles Knight's edition, but those in square brackets are mine.