Sonnet LXXVI
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,So far from variation or quick change?Why with the time do I not glance asideTo new-found methods, and to compounds strange?Why write I still all one, ever the same,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;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.
Words in this poem
- spending n.
- The act of expending; expenditure. Spending money, money set apart for extra (not necessary) personal expenses; pocket money.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet LXXVI is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #1041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXXVI, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-76.html, id L00094.
Form and metre
Sonnet LXXVI is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGG prideA · changeB · asideA · strangeB · sameC · weedD · nameC · proceedD · youE · argumentF · newE · spentF · oldG · toldG
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Why is my verse so barren of new pride, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| So far from variation or quick change? | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Why with the time do I not glance aside | 10 | ········˘/ |
| To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Why write I still all one, ever the same, | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| And keep invention in a noted weed, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| That every word doth almost tell my name, | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| Showing their birth, and where they did proceed? | 10 | /˘······˘/ |
| O! know sweet love I always write of you, | 10 | ·····/···· |
| And you and love are still my argument; | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| So all my best is dressing old words new, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Spending again what is already spent: | 10 | /˘˘/··˘/˘· |
| For as the sun is daily new and old, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| So is my love still telling what is told. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.