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ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students

Sonnet 9: Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye

William Shakespeare·1564–1616
Lines:14Movement:English Renaissance
Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,That thou consum'st thy self in single life?Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;The world will be thy widow and still weepThat thou no form of thee hast left behind,When every private widow well may keepBy children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spendShifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,And kept unused the user so destroys it. No love toward others in that bosom sits That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.