Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye
Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
That thou consumest thyself 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 weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind
Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts 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 murderous shame commits
That thou consumest thyself 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 weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind
Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts 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 murderous shame commits