William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
Sonnet 9
1Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
2That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
3Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
4The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,
5The world will be thy widow and still weep
6That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
7When every private widow well may keep,
8By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
9Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
10Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it,
11But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
12And kept unused the user so destroys it:
13 No love tow'rd others in that bosom sits
14 That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
Notes
3] hap] chance. makeless] matchless; unmated.
10] enjoys it] possibly elided as "enjoys 't". The spendthrift's money only changes hands (and is not lost).
12] destroys it] possibly elided as "destroys 't".
13] tow'rd] toward Q.
Online text copyright © 2012, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): b2v.
First publication date:
1609
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2008
Recent editing: 1:2008/8/21
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: ababcdcdefefgg
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