Shakespeare's Sonnets: Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
Sonnet 76
Original Text
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): e4v.
2So far from variation or quick change?
4To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
5Why write I still all one, ever the same,
8Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
9O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
10And you and love are still my argument:
11So all my best is dressing old words new,
12Spending again what is already spent:
13 For as the sun is daily new and old,
14 So is my love still telling what is told.
Notes
1] pride] showiness. Back to Line
3] with the time] following a current trend. Back to Line
6] a noted weed] a recognizable dress. Back to Line
7] feal] fel Q. Often emended as "tell" to accord with the last line (a reasonable and attractive conjecture), but "fel" can mean "conceal". If editing cannot cure a textual problem, it can at least keep as close to the original as possible. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1609
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Rhyme
Form