The Poetry Corner

The Sonnets XLI - Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits

By William Shakespeare

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 assaild; And when a woman woos, what womans son Will sourly leave her till he have prevaild? 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.