Sonnet CCLXXV:
Thus gracious ever is my darling’s mind;
Forgiving not alone the guilt which dyes
My features scarlet, when my history lies
Spread out before her with its shames combined;
But to my tedious talk her heart is kind—
That silly froth of sobs and prayers and sighs,
Which makes me foolish to my proper eyes—
When I, love-foundered, grope in phrases blind.
Small cheer her patience, in the end, can gain
From all my prattling platitudes, no more;
The same weak things repeated o’er and o’er.
How many times 'I love thee’ served my pain
For speech, is countless; yet those words again
Each time she hears more kindly than before.
