Shakespeare’s Sonnet 77

Note for purists: This is a slightly adapted version of Sonnet 77. I’ve removed the archaic pronouns (“thee,” “thou,” etc).

Your glass will show you how your beauties wear,
your dial how your precious minutes waste;
the vacant leaves your mind’s imprint will bear,
and of this book this learning may you taste.
The wrinkles which your glass will truly show
of mouthed graves will give you memory;
you, by your dial’s shady stealth, may know
Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
Look, what your memory cannot contain,
commit to these waste blanks, and you shall find
those children nursed, delivered from your brain,
to take a new acquaintance of your mind.
These offices, so oft as you will look,
shall profit you, and much enrich your book.