Sonnet 102: My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming

1My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

2I love not less, though less the show appear;

3That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,

4The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

5Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

6When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

7As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

8And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

9Not that the summer is less pleasant now

10Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

11But that wild music burthens every bough,

12And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

13 Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:

14 Because I would not dull you with my song.