Sonnet 108. Craig, W.J., ed. 1914. The Oxford Shakespeare

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

Sonnet CVIII.

“What ’s in the brain, that ink may character”

WHAT ’S in the brain, that ink may character
Which hath not figur’d to thee my true spirit?
What ’s new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,	5
I must each day say o’er the very same;
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallow’d thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love’s fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,	10
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page;
Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead.