Sonnet 108

Constancy and the Muse

1 What's in the brain, that ink may character,
2 Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?
3 What's new to speak, what now to register,
4 That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
5 Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
6 I must each day say o'er the very same;
7 Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
8 Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
9 So that eternal love in love's fresh case,
10 Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
11 Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
12 But makes antiquity for aye his page;
13 Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
14 Where time and outward form would show it dead.

Notes

TLN 1500archaic vocab
“ink may character”
'Character' is used as a verb meaning to inscribe or write. The question is: what thought exists in the mind that ink can set down in writing that has not already been expressed to the beloved?
historical The sonnet form
TLN 1501archaic vocab
“figur'd to thee my true spirit”
'Figur'd' means represented or depicted — to 'figure forth' something is to portray it fully in words or images. The speaker claims his true inner self has already been completely expressed to the beloved.
TLN 1504rhetorical device
“like prayers divine, I must each day say o'er the very same”
The speaker answers his own question with an analogy to daily prayer: repetition is not staleness but ritual fidelity. Just as believers repeat the same prayers each morning not because the words are new but because the devotion is living, the speaker must daily repeat 'thou mine, I thine' as an act of renewal, not routine.
TLN 1507biblical allusion
“hallow'd thy fair name”
'Hallow'd' means made holy or consecrated. The phrase echoes the Lord's Prayer ('hallowed be thy name,' Matthew 6:9), quietly placing the beloved in the position of the divine: just as the faithful daily hallow God's name in prayer, the speaker daily hallows the beloved's name with the same devotion.
TLN 1512archaic vocab
“Finding the first conceit of love there bred”
'Conceit' here means idea or original imaginative conception — not vanity or arrogance. 'The first conceit of love' is the earliest idea, the original imaginative grasp of what love is, which the speaker finds still alive even where time and outward appearance ('outward form') would suggest it should be dead.