The speaker looks at a world so morally decayed that it taints everything noble. He asks, with a kind of wounded frustration, why a truly virtuous person should have to live in this infected atmosphere, where sinners use his presence to mask their own corruption. The pain comes from seeing cheap imitations — artificial paintings and fake roses — trying to copy a beauty that is real and alive only in this one beloved figure. Nature itself has gone broke, bankrupted of vitality, and now survives solely through this man. He is the treasury and the last evidence of a richer, better age. The mood is mournful and disillusioned, yet the speaker’s reverence for the beloved gives the poem a quiet fierceness. It’s as if he’s both grieving a fallen world and fiercely holding onto the one thing that remains pure.
Sonnet 67: Ah! wherefore with infection should he live — Summary
Ah! wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety, That sin by him advantage should achieve, And lace itself with his society? Why should false painting imitate his cheek, And steel dead seeming of his living hue? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek Roses of shadow, since his rose is true? Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is, Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins? For she hath no exchequer now but his, And proud of many, lives upon his gains. O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had In days long since, before these last so bad.