Sonnet 86. Craig, W.J., ed. 1914. The Oxford Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.

Sonnet LXXXVI.

“Was it the proud full sail of his great verse”

WAS it the proud full sail of his great verse
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write	5
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,	10
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence:
But when your countenance fill’d up his line,
Then lack’d I matter; that enfeebled mine.