Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse

1Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

2Bound for the prize of all too precious you,

3That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,

4Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

5Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,

6Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

7No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

8Giving him aid, my verse astonished.

9He, nor that affable familiar ghost

10Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,

11As victors of my silence cannot boast;

12I was not sick of any fear from thence:

13 But when your countenance fill'd up his line,

14 Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.