Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 122
122
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full character'd with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity: 4
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd. 8
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more: 12
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.
1–14 Cf. n.
1 tables: memorandum book
3 idle rank: empty row of leaves
7 raz'd: empty
9 poor retention: book that contains little
10 tallies . . . score; cf. n.
12 those tables: my memory
13 adjunct: attendant