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Sonnet LXXVI. [Why is my verse so barren of new pride,]

by William Shakespeare, 1609

Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O! know sweet love I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
      For as the sun is daily new and old,
      So is my love still telling what is told.

Published in Shakespeare's Sonnets
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