Shakespeare's Sonnets: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear

Sonnet 77

Original Text
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): e4v-f1r.
1Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
2Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste.
3The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
4And of this book, this learning may'st thou taste.
5The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
6Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory.
7Thou by thy dial's shady stealth may'st know
8Time's thievish progress to eternity.
9Look what thy memory cannot contain,
10Commit to these waste blacks, and thou shalt find
11Those children nurs't, deliver'd from thy brain,
12To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
13    These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
14    Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

Notes

1] glass] mirror. wear] were Q. Back to Line
10] blacks] possibly "black lines" (Shakespeare's Sonnets, ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones, Arden Shakespeare [London: Thomson Learning, 1997]: 264). Back to Line
12] The beloved's mind will become newly acquainted with its offspring after they have been out on the page for a while. Back to Line
13] offices] functions. Back to Line
14] book] study (OED, "book," n., 7). Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1609
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Rhyme
ababcdcdefefgg
Form
sonnet