Sonnet 146

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

Spoiled by these rebel powers that thee array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?

Then soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store;

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

Soul, so poor, at the center of the earth

That is my body, too,

Why do you humiliate your own worth,

Exhausting yourself in the outward show,

Investing so much in what’s so ephemeral,

Weeping for your body that’s destined to go

Into oblivion, incidental,

Back to earth, ashes without glow?

Is this what you think the body was for?

If not, then mount up on its fate.

Give up the time for something diviner.

Treasure yourself. Let the body wait

For its own death, which shall not be yours,

Though with it die hours, weeks, years.