The speaker pleads with his beloved not to defend his memory after he dies. He’s convinced he contains nothing worth loving, so any kind words spoken on his behalf would have to be a virtuous lie, piling praise on a dead man who never deserved it. That falsehood threatens to shame them both: it would expose the beloved’s love as untrue, and the speaker would remain a source of embarrassment even from the grave. So he asks to be completely forgotten, his name buried with his body, letting all traces of him vanish. The closing couplet lands with quiet cruelty—he’s ashamed of everything he is, and the beloved should feel the same for loving something so worthless. It creates a tender, self-lacerating mood, where love is tangled with self-disgust and a fierce wish to protect the other’s honesty at the cost of one’s own memory.
Sonnet 72: O! lest the world should task you to recite — Summary
O! lest the world should task you to recite What merit lived in me, that you should love After my death,--dear love, forget me quite, For you in me can nothing worthy prove; Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, To do more for me than mine own desert, And hang more praise upon deceased I Than niggard truth would willingly impart: O! lest your true love may seem false in this That you for love speak well of me untrue, My name be buried where my body is, And live no more to shame nor me nor you. For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth.