Sonnet CXLVI: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth
Sonnet CXLVI: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
These rebel powers that thee array;
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
Miscellany
Other poems by William Shakespeare (read randomly)
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force,
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
