Sonnet 102

My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear:

That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming

The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere.

Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

When I was wont to greet it with my lays,

As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days.

Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough,

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue,

Because I would not dull you with my song.

My love is stronger though it might seem weaker.

I don’t love you less, though I make less of a show.

Advertised love is making love bleaker.

I sing of you softly wherever I go.

Our love was once new, and that was the spring,

And I met it like the nightingale

With endless greeting,

And stopped like the nightingale

At summer. Not because of less pleasure—

But when the spring bird sings the love song,

It makes the past winter seem quieter;

By summer, everywhere’s a loud throng.

In the midst of so much music, I sing less,

In pursuit of more novel ways to impress.