William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet XLI
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 assail'd;
And when a woman woos,
what woman's son
Will sourly leave
her till he 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 forced
to break a twofold truth:--
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine by thy beauty being false to me.
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