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,
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.
In plain English
Why does my poetry feel stale and repetitive? I don't chase new fashions or experiment with trendy techniques the way other writers do. I keep writing the same way, in the same voice — so recognizable that my words practically announce who wrote them.
The answer is simple: you're all I write about. You and love are my only subject. So I'm constantly recycling the same material, polishing old phrases instead of finding fresh ones — like spending money I've already exhausted.
But there's no shame in it. The sun rises new each day yet is always itself. My love works the same way: eternally fresh, eternally the same, always circling back to the same truth about you.
