SONNET #40
by: William Shakespeare
(1564-1616)
- AKE all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
- What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
- No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
- All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
- Then, if for my love thou my love receivest,
- I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
- But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest
- By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
- I do forgive thy robb'ry, gentle theif,
- Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
- And yet love knows it is a greater grief
- To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
- Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
- Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.
"Sonnet #40" was originally published in Shake-speares Sonnets: Never before Imprinted
(1609). |
MORE POEMS BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE |
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