Shakespeare's Sonnets Navigator Summary of Sonnet 79 in the Table of Contents Notes for Sonnet 79

Shakespeare's Sonnet 79


  1    Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
  2    My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
  3    But now my gracious numbers are decay'd
  4    And my sick Muse doth give another place.
  5    I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
  6    Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
  7    Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
  8    He robs thee of and pays it thee again.
  9    He lends thee virtue and he stole that word
 10    From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give
 11    And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
 12    No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.
 13      Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
 14      Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.

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