SONNET #9

by: William Shakespeare

S it for fear to wet a widow's eye

That thou consum'st thyself in single life?

Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow, and still weep

That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

When every private widow well may keep,

By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind.

Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,

And, kept unused, the user so destroys it:

No love toward others in that bosom sits

Than on himself such murd'rous shame commits.

• Shakespeare Index - An index of articles on to the Elizabethan dramatist.
• All Sorts of Hamlets - A study of some of the most famous actors to tackle Shakespeare's most famous rôle.
• Biographical aspects of the Sonnets - Examines the worth of Shakespeare's sonnets in piecing together clues as to the nature of his romantic life.
• His Family and Education - Available biographical details of Shakespeare's early life.
• His Marriage and Relations with his Wife - Known facts of Shakespeare's relationship with Anne Hathaway.
• Shakespearean Blank Verse - Management of metre, pause, trisyllabic substitution and the redundant syllable.
• The Shakespeare-Bacon Theory - Analysis of the theory that the plays of William Shakespeare were not written by the man whose biography we are familiar with, but rather under pseudonym by Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon.
• Shakespeare Monologues - A collection of monologues for actors.
• Shakespeare's Coined Words - A study of words coined by Shakespeare which either have been, or deserve to be, adopted into common usage.
• William Shakespeare - A biography.
• William Shakespeare - A biographical account of the poet's life.
• William Shakespeare (1564-1616) - A biography, plus links to purchase all of his works currently in print.
• Purchase books by William Shakespeare