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- Edition: The Sonnets
The Sonnets (Modern)
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- Facsimiles
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1757Like as to make our appetite more keen
1758With eager compounds we our palate urge;
1759As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
1760We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;
1761Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
1762To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding,
1763And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness
1764To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
1765Thus policy in love, t'anticipate
1766The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
1767And brought to medicine a healthful state
1768Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured.
1769 But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,
1770 Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
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1772What potions have I drunk of siren tears
1773Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
1774Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
1775Still losing when I saw myself to win!
1776What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
1777Whilst it hath thought itself so blessèd never!
1778How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
1779In the distraction of this madding fever!
1780O benefit of ill: now I find true
1781That better is by evil still made better,
1782And ruined love when it is built anew
1783Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
1784 So I return rebuked to my content,
1785 And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
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1787That you were once unkind befriends me now,
1788And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
1789Needs must I under my transgression bow,
1790Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
1791For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
1792As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time,
1793And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
1794To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
1795O that our night of woe might have remembered
1796My deepest sense how hard true sorrow hits,
1797And soon to you, as you to me then, tendered
1798The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!
1799 But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
1800 Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.