Sonnet 13
O, that you were yourself! but, love, you areNo longer yours than you yourself here live:Against this coming end you should prepare,And your sweet semblance to some other give.So should that beauty which you hold in leaseFind no determination: then you wereYourself again after yourself's decease,When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,Which husbandry in honour might upholdAgainst the stormy gusts of winter's dayAnd barren rage of death's eternal cold? O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know You had a father: let your son say so.
Repeating again what I've said:please procreate, 'fore you drop dead.Don't shoot that sweet issueoff into a tissue — you know where to put it instead.