The Goddess
These Sonnets were written at various times throughout the Poet's Life during the production of the Dramatic Plays and were completed as a Canto after his Fall and the Publication of the Great Folio. The last Sonnet is one of the very last poems he ever wrote at the close of his life:
Sonnet LXXXVII
To Athene...The Lyrical Poet's Farewell *
Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
The Charter of thy Worth give thee releasing;
My Bonds in thee are all Determinate. **
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my Patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift upon Misprision *** growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
Thus have I had thee as a Dream doth flatter,
In sleep a King, but waking no such matter.
* The Poet imagines that Athene possesses the superlative qualities of wisdom. Her rich gifts to him to be put to use he could not employ as a lyrical Poet in their widest sense. In his youthful days as a pure lyricist she had bestowed her favours upon him hardly knowing her own worth. From Francis Bacon, the lyrical Sonneteer he had developed into "Shake-Speare" the Dramatist. The Contract between Athene and the Sonneteer is cut by the lyricists default...so the Poet writes to her one of his last Sonnets. He is closing his themes and laying down his Lyrical Pen for ever. He smiles "Farewell" with whimsical pathos, but there are tears in every line.
** Determinate = ended
*** Misprision = mistake