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Sonnet · Death & Loss

Sonnet 146: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth

by William Shakespeare

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

My sinful earth these rebel powers array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting 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,

Eat 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;

Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

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Quick facts

Poem
Sonnet 146: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth
Poet
William Shakespeare
Length
14 lines
Form
Sonnet
Themes
Death & Loss, Peace

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape
14 lines · one 14-line stanza
Line length
Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
William Shakespeare1564–1616
Source record
PoetryDBSonnet 146: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth by william-shakespeare, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 8a87f2303262a0b2
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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