Sonnet 108

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< Sonnet 108 >

What's in the brain, that ink may character,
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What's new to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same;
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love's fresh case,
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page;
Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
–William Shakespeare

Sonnet 108 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

[edit] Synopsis

Is there anything new for the poet to say about the youth? No, but he must say the same things repeatedly, like prayers, in order to keep eternal love fresh. The agedness of love disappears as it looks back to when it was first created, even though the passage of time would suggest it should by now have died.