William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet IX
Is it for
fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st
thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless
shalt hap to die,
The world will wail
thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be
thy widow and still weep
That thou no form
of thee hast left behind,
When every private
widow well may keep
By children's eyes,
her husband's shape in mind:
Look! what an unthrift
in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place,
for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste
hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the
user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
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