Sonnet 86

1 Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
2 Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,
3 That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
4 Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
5 Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,
6 Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
7 No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
8 Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
9 He nor that affable familiar ghost
10 Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
11 As victors of my silence cannot boast,
12 I was not sick of any fear from thence.
13 But when your countenance filled up his line,
14 Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.