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Sonnet 9: Is It For Fear To Wet A Widow’s Eye, By: William Shakespeare

October 12, 2026 by Editors

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Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye,
That thou consum’st 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 murd’rous shame commits.

Read all of William Shakespeare's poems · About William Shakespeare

More by William Shakespeare

  • Sonnet 10: For Shame! Deny That Thou Bear'st Love To Any
  • Sonnet 11: As Fast As Thou Shalt Wane, So Fast Thou Grow'st
  • Sonnet 13: O! That You Were Your Self; But, Love You Are
  • Sonnet 14: Not From The Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck
  • Sonnet 15: When I Consider Everything That Grows

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