Theme: Eternal Love
Content: The author deliberating on new ways to express his feelings for, and the worth of, the subject.
What's in
the brain that
ink
may character,
Which hath not figured to thee my true
spirit,
What's new
to speak, what now to
register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
- Possible transcription error in now which may have originally been new, especially as this would provide 2 instances of new to match the 2 instances of old in the equivalent line of Q2.
- This is an in sonnet with extensive use of the word in on its own and embedded within other key words, such as ink being in brain.
- Another sonnet that uses 2 of the sonnets' 3 key words: fair, "kind" and true.
Nothing sweet
boy, but yet like prayers divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same,
Counting
no
old thing old, thou
mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
- sweet boy identifies the subject's gender and youth but not their identity: it could be anyone from the "Young Man" to the author's son.
- Q1 centred on new; Q2 centres on old.
- Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name echoes the Lord's Prayer's "hallowed be thy name" so again, effectively deifies the subject as in recent sonnets.
- Nothing expands into no old thing.
- thing morphs into thine via thou mine.
- in rears again in Nothing, divine, Counting, thing, mine, thine.
So that eternal
love in love's
fresh
case,
Weighs not the dust and injury
of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles
place,
But makes antiquity
for aye his page,
- The new of Q1 and the old of Q2 combine in Q3 with fresh and antiquity and ultimately in eternal.
- in rears again in in, injury, wrinkles.
- The ink of Q1 morphs into wrinkles and the literature imagery continues with page.
Finding
the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
- in rears again twice in Finding.
- Possible literature pun on "read" in bred.
- The bred/dead rhyme appears once again as in other sonnets.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net