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About this text

  • Title: Shake-speares Sonnets (Quarto 1, 1609)
  • Editors: Hardy M. Cook, Ian Lancashire

  • Copyright Hardy M. Cook and Ian Lancashire. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editors: Hardy M. Cook, Ian Lancashire
    Peer Reviewed

    Shake-speares Sonnets (Quarto 1, 1609)

    SONNETS.

    Eternal numbers to out-liue long date.
    If my slight Muse doe please these curious daies,
    The paine be mine, but thine shal be the praise.

    57039

    OH how thy worth with manners may I singe,
    When thou art all the better part of me?
    What can mine owne praise to mine owne selfe bring;
    And what is't but mine owne when I praise thee,
    575Euen for this, let vs deuided liue,
    And our deare loue loose name of single one,
    That by this seperation I may giue:
    That due to thee which thou deseru'st alone:
    Oh absence what a torment wouldst thou proue,
    580Were it not thy soure leisure gaue sweet leaue,
    To entertaine the time with thoughts of loue,
    Which time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceiue.
    And that thou teachest how to make one twaine,
    By praising him here who doth hence remaine.

    58540

    TAke all my loues, my loue, yea take them all,
    What hast thou then more then thou hadst before?
    No loue, my loue, that thou maist true loue call,
    All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:
    590Then if for my loue, thou my loue receiuest,
    I cannot blame thee, for my loue thou vsest,
    But yet be blam'd, if thou this selfe deceauest
    B y wilfull taste of what thy selfe refusest.
    I doe forgiue thy robb'rie gentle theefe
    595Although thou steale thee all my pouerty:
    And yet loue knowes it is a greater griefe
    To beare loues wrong, then hates knowne iniury.
    Lasciuious grace, in whom all il wel showes,
    Kill me with spights yet we must not be foes.

    6004I

    THose pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
    When I am some-time absent from thy heart,
    Thy
    D