Shakespeare's Sonnet 108

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

What thought is left in my mind for ink to put into words that has not already shown you my faithful heart? What new thing can I say, what can I now write down, to express my love or your precious worth? Nothing, sweet boy. Yet, like holy prayers, I must repeat the very same words each day, treating nothing familiar as worn out: you are mine, and I am yours, just as when I first honored your beautiful name as sacred. In this way, eternal love, kept fresh in its expression, pays no attention to the dust and damage of age or yields to inevitable wrinkles, but makes old age its servant forever. It finds love’s first inspiration still alive where time and outward appearance would suggest that it is dead.