Sonnet 76

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.

Why is my verse so empty of new glory?

Why so far from experiment or change?

Why don’t I tell a more avant-garde story?

Something postmodern, something strange?

Why do I keep writing one poem, the same thing,

Always improvising on the same reed?

Take my name off—you’d still know it was my song—

Exactly where it came from and how it will proceed.

Here’s why, you know: I always write for you.

You and love are always my best themes.

So the best I can do is make old words new,

Dreaming again what’s already in dreams.

But the sun, too, is daily new and old,

And the story of love is still telling what’s told.