Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/31

Shakespeare's Sonnets 

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,

When I am sometimes absent from thy heart,

Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,

For still temptation follows where thou art.

Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;

And when a woman woos, what woman's son

Will sourly leave her till she have prevail'd?

Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,

And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forc'd to break a twofold truth;—

Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

 

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I lov'd her dearly;

That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly.

Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:

Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;

Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

And both for my sake lay on me this cross:

But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;

Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.

 1 liberty: license  3 chief: the main cause

7 abuse: misuse

8 approve: like, make trial of (?)

11 both twain: both the two 