Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, <br />Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, <br />That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, <br />Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? <br />Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write <br />Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? <br />No, neither he, nor his compeers by night <br />Giving him aid, my verse astonishèd. <br />He nor that affable familiar ghost <br />Which nightly gulls him with intelligence, <br />As victors of my silence cannot boast; <br />I was not sick of any fear from thence. <br /> But when your countenance filled up his line, <br /> Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.<br /><br />William Shakespeare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-86-was-it-the-proud-full-sail-of-his-grea/
