Sonnet 76

by William Shakespeare

  Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
  So far from variation or quick change?
  Why with the time do I not glance aside
  To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
  Why write I still all one, ever the same,
  And keep invention in a noted weed,
  That every word doth almost tell my name,
  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
  O know sweet love I always write of you,
  And you and love are still my argument:
  So all my best is dressing old words new,
  Spending again what is already spent:
    For as the sun is daily new and old,
    So is my love still telling what is told.