| 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, | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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. |