The
earth can have but earth, which is his due;
Sonnet 74 Line 7
Ah, what the
heck, I’ll give you the whole thing. It’s only fourteen lines and pretty easy to understand. The fell arrest in the first line is, I
believe, death; just in case that was giving you trouble.
But be contented: when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dust review
The very part was consecrate to thee:
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me:
So, then, thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead;
The coward conquest of a wretched knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered.
The worth of that is that which it
contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.
And there you go.
I added the spaces between every four lines and that last two lines. I think
it’s really easier to understand the sonnets when you take it this way. Each of
those four line segments has its own piece of the total.
It’s pretty much the same theme as the summer’s day sonnet. That one ends with so long lives this, and this gives life to thee (I had to look it up). That poem talks about the poem giving the subject of the poem everlasting life. In this one we're talking about the sonnet giving him, the writer/speaker eternal life. Either way, the words grant eternal life, and the physical body is eventually just worm food.
Well, we’re still talking about Will and his words four hundred
years later, and Will is way past the worm food stage. Sooo…..words, eh?
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