Sonnet 76

  1. Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
  2. So far from variation or quick change?
  3. Why with the time do I not glance aside
  4. To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
  5. Why write I still all one, ever the same,
  6. And keep invention in a noted weed,
  7. That every word doth almost tell my name,
  8. Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
  9. O! know sweet love I always write of you,
  10. And you and love are still my argument;
  11. So all my best is dressing old words new,
  12. Spending 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.

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