Back to main page
Shakespeare's Sonnets - Sonnet 146
Cite
Download Shakespeare's Sonnets
Last updated: Fri, Jul 31, 2015
- PDF Download as PDF
- DOC (for MS Word, Apple Pages, Open Office, etc.) without line numbers Download as DOC (for MS Word, Apple Pages, Open Office, etc.) without line numbers
- DOC (for MS Word, Apple Pages, Open Office, etc.) with line numbers Download as DOC (for MS Word, Apple Pages, Open Office, etc.) with line numbers
- HTML Download as HTML
- TXT Download as TXT
- XML Download as XML
Navigate this work
Shakespeare's Sonnets - Sonnet 146Sonnet 146
146
Synopsis:
The poet here meditates on the soul and its relation to the body, in life and in death.
Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth,
⌜Pressed with⌝ these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
4Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
8Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store.
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
12Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.