Shakespeare's Sonnets: Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye

Sonnet 9

Original Text
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): b2v.
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. Back to Line
10] enjoys it] possibly elided as "enjoys 't". The spendthrift's money only changes hands (and is not lost). Back to Line
12] destroys it] possibly elided as "destroys 't". Back to Line
13] tow'rd] toward Q. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1609
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Rhyme
ababcdcdefefgg
Form
sonnet