"Sonnet 9"

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"Sonnet IX"


Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye


That thou consumest thyself in single life?


Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die.


The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;


The world will be thy widow and still weep


That thou no form of thee hast left behind,


When every private widow well may keep


By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.


Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend


Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;


But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,


And kept unused, the user so destroys it.


No love toward others in that bosom sits


That on himself such murderous shame commits.

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William Shakespeare Poems, Quotes And SonnetsWhere stories live. Discover now