LXXXVI

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence:
But when your countenance fill’d up his line,
Then lack’d I matter; that enfeebled mine.

Where this text comes from

First published in Shake-speares Sonnets (1609). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/william-shakespeare_poetry, sonnets.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1#L14.

Cite this poem

William Shakespeare (1564–1616). “LXXXVI.” First published in Shake-speares Sonnets (1609). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/william-shakespeare/lxxxvi/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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