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Is it for feare to wet a widdowes eye,
That thou confirm'st thy selfe in single life?
Ah, if thou issulesse shalt hap to die,
The world will waile thee like a makelesse wife,
The world wil be thy widdow and still weepe,
That thou no forme of thee hast left behind,
When every privat widdow well may keepe,
By childrens eyes, her husbands shape in minde;
Looke what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world injoyes it
But beauties waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unusde the user so destroyes it:
No love toward others in that bosome fits
That on himselfe such murdrous shame commits.
Commentary
Commentary
Address to a fair young man encouraging him to procreate
Address to a fair young man encouraging him to procreate
The first quatrain asks the question whether the young man stays single because he fears making some woman a widow, but the poet points out that, in fact, if he dies issueless the world will mourn for him as though he were a wife who does not bear any children (makeless).
The second quatrain continues to ruminate on widowhood, now remarking that at least the widow has her children to remind her of the 'shape' of her dead husband.
The third quatrain makes the point that whatever (looke what) a spendthrift (unthrift) spends just moves from one hand to another, but beauty, unused, is destroyed.
The final couplet asserts that he who commits such heinous acts is no lover of humanity.
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