1. O that you were yourself, but love you are
2. No longer yours, than you yourself here live,
3. Against this coming end you should prepare,,
4. And your sweet semblance to some other give.
5. So should that beauty which you hold in lease
6. Find no determination: then you were
7. Yourself again after yourself's decease,
8. When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
9. Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
10. Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
11. Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
12. And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
13. O, none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,
14. You had a Father, let your Son say so.
Let Your Son Say So
Dedication: To Elizabeth
Explaining to Elizabeth she is no longer the women he knows her to be or acting in her own interest. That she must prepare for her end and recognize Henry. Or else he tells her she will essentially have this same lack of a determination after she dies because Henry will remain and yet have never been revealed. Then he reminds her of the Tudor dynasty and lineage which she has entrusted to her and asks how she can let it decay. Finally in a desperate plea for her not to waste Henry he reminds her of her own father Henry VIII and asks that she acknowledge him as a father to their son and reveal Henry.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Telling Elizabeth that not she does not belong to herself just as she is not herself in lines 1 and 2. Alluding to it not being the real Elizabeth that keeps Henry hidden. Telling her that her demise is imminent in line 3. While telling her that she must act and recognize in line 4.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Appealing to her that she must convert Henry whom she holds in lease in line 5 else he would find no "determination" in line 6. Telling her that then she would again be herself through the renewal in line 7. Henry is the "sweet issue" in line 8 that Elizabeth's "sweet form should bear".
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
Asking her who would let her Tudor house fall into decay in line 9. Playing his own role in "husbandry" telling her that better use of Henry as a resource would uphold this house in line 10. Telling her again of her imminent end and the eternity of her death and this decision once it comes in lines 11 and 12.
couplet (13-14),
Explaining to Elizabeth emphatically to end Henry's bastard and unrecognized status with an appeal to recognize himself and Henry.
Commentary:
Line 3’s “against the coming end you should prepare”, along with line 5’s reference to “that beauty which you hold in lease”, effectively tells the story of these sonnets by themselves.
This sonnet to me clearly strikes me as an end of life sonnet and not to a young man to procreate. What’s more this sonnet and the rest until two I believe demonstrates growing urgency of this end of life period for Elizabeth.
Again line 9 not only references her Tudor house but should also be seen in light of 146 where the poet references "thy fading mansion". Which should be surprising considering that is a "Dark Lady" sonnet and this is supposed to the a "Procreation/Fair Youth" sonnet.
In my mind one of the most shocking sonnets and not at all in my opinion appropriate to a young man. This sonnet should clearly be understood as to someone near death. And the message of holding “beauty in lease”, should be easily understood as an expression of her keeping Henry in holding. But the shocking point is the final remark of reminding her of her father, Henry VIII, as an expression of her denying Henry his rightful father, Oxford.