Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 41

by William Shakespeare

For other versions of this work, see Sonnet 41 (Shakespeare).

Layout 2

41

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. 4
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? 8
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;— 12
Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

 

1 liberty: license