Sonnet 76

Why is my verse so barren of new pride?

So far from variation or quicke 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 tel my name,

Shewing 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 againe what is already spent:

For as the Sun is daily new and old,

So is my love still telling what is told.

Commentary

Changes to the original text: line 7, 'sel' changed to 'tel'

In the first quatrain, the poet asks rhetorically why he does not change his verses more often.

In the second quatrain, the poet points out that one could almost tell the author from every word of what he writes.

In the third quatrain, the poet provides the answer: it is because he always writes of the same thing: his beloved and love.

In the final couplet, the poet asserts that his verse is like the sun, which is new and old every day.

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