1. I grant thou wert not married to my Muse

2. And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook

3. The dedicated words which writers use

4. Of their fair subject, blessing every book.

5. Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

6. Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,

7. And therefore art enforced to seek anew,

8. Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.

9. And do so love, yet when they have devised,

10. What strained touches Rhetoric can lend,

11. Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,

12. In true plain words by thy true-telling friend.

13. And their gross painting might be better used,

14. Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.

Some Fresher Stamp

Dedication: To Elizabeth

Expressing his understanding of Elizabeth’s seeming indifference to the praises Oxford heaps on Henry. Offering that though she and Henry are not harmoniously joined. Suggesting to her that her worth is past his ability to express it. Because of this she must find a way to renew herself. Alluding to his own identity as the “truth telling friend” (Vere means truth in Latin), he further tells her that she is withholding life renewing force by not her continued concealment of Henry.

1^st Quatrain: (1-4)

Alluding to their marriage not recognized, telling Elizabeth she was not wedded to his inspirational figures. And thus that she can overlook without any disparaging consequences the praises he expresses for Henry. Elizabeth would recognize as both the "fair subject" and as probably those items "blessing every book", as in these poems in others poems and possibly dedications and other places.

2^nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Appealing to her fairness, justness, and awareness of her own mortality and telling her to make Henry "some fresher stamp" and thus renew her.

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

Telling her to recognize Henry despite the party line of the "strain touches rhetoric can lend" by her counselors in lines 9 & 10. While telling her in lines 11 & 12 of his own true words with which should listen.

couplet (13-14),

Alluding to the cover up with the "gross painting" in line 11. While line 12 tells her that she is abusing her own life giving blood by not providing metaphoric life to Henry.

Commentary:

This sonnet is a continuation on the commentary that of the need of the subject to continue on and of the abuse of Henry. The argument to provide “some fresher stamp” should seem odd to a young man and should not seem to the concern of the poet. However to an aging monarch with a child in the wings from her poet husband (or at least co-procreator) this sonnet makes much greater sense.This also is supposed to be about the “rival poet” but the actuality is that this poem is an expression of seeing his subject continued on in the flesh of her existing son. And in fact there is no actual rival but a mistaken allusion to other more generic and anonymous writers. Thus this sonnet like many other sonnets meanings are misinterpreted by means of the need to group and identify these sonnets erroneously with the subject to whom it is thought they are speaking.

This sonnets finish with the thought that Elizabeth is abusing the life giving force of her own blood is a thinly veiled reference to Henry with the though that she keeps all this blood to herself and doesn’t acknowledge that it lives in Henry as well.

Line 8 expresses the opportunity in Henry for her renewal and will become an ever present message as these sonnets progress to the end. Line 12 reveals Henry again as both’s the poet’s friend but also a metaphorical bearer of truth via his own identity and not insignificant tie to Oxford to whom truth is so important as I’ve discussed previously.

Vendler offers again a literal interpretation. She believes that poet has seen a new book of verse by another poet dedicated to the young man without the young man’s permission. And this poem is a reproach to the young man for moving “into loving association with another Muse!” She goes on to say that the praise of the subject’s knowledge is tied to the subject’s interest in new books only for the praise that they provide to the subject. I find it interesting that she interprets the references to the books as literal while references to the paintings are figurative. Most perplexing perhaps of all is her claim that hue “suggests … that it may bear some occult reference (now lost) to the young man’s name.