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Sonnet 37: As A Decrepit Father Takes Delight, By: William Shakespeare

October 12, 2026 by Editors

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As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted, to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis’d,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am suffic’d,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!

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

More by William Shakespeare

  • Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject To Invent
  • Sonnet 39: O! How Thy Worth With Manners May I Sing
  • Sonnet 40: Take All My Loves, My Love, Yea Take Them All
  • Sonnet 41: Those Pretty Wrongs That Liberty Commits
  • Sonnet 42: That Thou Hast Her It Is Not All My Grief

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