abyssia

Something someone I'd like to call a friend - but who is not officially such - wrote in response to my last post put me in mind of this sonnet that I was made to memorize in senior english. I was able to choose the sonnet.... Of course, once I had memorized the damn thing, I wasn't about to let it get away - so I repeated it to myself every night for well over a month. Now it is just part of my brain. It worked!

William Shakespeare
Sonnet 103

Alack! What poverty my muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside.

O, blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass and there appears a face
That overgoes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace.

Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend
Then of your grace and your gifts to tell;

And more, much more than my verse can sit,
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.