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  • Title: The Sonnets (Modern)
  • Editor: Michael Best

    • Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Michael Best
    Not Peer Reviewed

    The Sonnets (Modern)

    112
    Your love and pity doth th'impression fill
    Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
    For what care I who calls me well or ill
    1670So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
    You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
    To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
    None else to me, nor I to none alive,
    That my steeled sense o'er-changes right or wrong.
    1675In so profound abysm I throw all care
    Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
    To critic and to flatterer stoppèd are.
    Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
    You are so strongly in my purpose bred
    1680 That all the world besides, methinks, are dead.
    113
    Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
    And that which governs me to go about
    Doth part his function, and is partly blind;
    1685Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
    For it no form delivers to the heart
    Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch;
    Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
    Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
    1690For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
    The most sweet-favored or deformed'st creature,
    The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night,
    The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
    Incapable of more, replete with you,
    1695 My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.
    114
    Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,
    Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
    Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
    1700And that your love taught it this alchemy,
    To make of monsters, and things indigest
    Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
    Creating every bad a perfect best
    As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
    1705Oh, 'tis the first, 'tis flatt'ry in my seeing,
    And my great mind most kingly drinks it up.
    Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
    And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
    If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,
    1710 That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
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