Is it for fear to we a widow's eye (Sonnet 9)

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye
That thou consumes thyself in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shall hap to die,
The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children’s eyes her husband’s shape in mind.
Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,
And, kept unused, the user so destroys it.
    No love toward others in that bosom sits
    That on himself such murderous shame commits.

This poem is in the public domain.