William Shakespeare: Sonnet 041

William Shakespeare

(1564-1616)

THE SONNETS

 

41

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,

When I am sometime 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 assailed.

And when a woman woos, what woman’s son,

Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?

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 forced to break a twofold truth:

Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

Thine by thy beauty being false to me.

kempis poetry magazine

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