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Sonnet · Life

Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

by William Shakespeare

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?

Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,

And being frank she lends to those are free:

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largess given thee to give?

Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

For having traffic with thy self alone,

Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:

Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,

What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,

Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

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Quick facts

Poem
Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Poet
William Shakespeare
Length
14 lines
Form
Sonnet
Themes
Life

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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Author record
William Shakespeare1564–1616
Source record
PoetryDBSonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend 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 a1978de6687953ed
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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