Sonnet 75

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;

And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found:

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;

Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure;

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,

And by and by clean starvèd for a look;

Possessing or pursuing no delight,

Save what is had or must from you be took.

Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

You give life to my thoughts like food

To a body, or rain to the dry earth.

You’re something I almost want to hoard,

Given the peace you give’s worth.

And there’s stress, too, in me,

As in any miser with treasure.

Now I’m enjoying others’ envy,

Now I’m worried they’ll steal my pleasure.

With me, you’re like a feast,

But gone, I am starved for a piece.

I have and seek no way to be pleased

Except what I have or must unrelease.

So I hunger or indulge, hour by hour—

Either gorging on all, or totally poor.