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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  154. Sonnets x

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Shakespeare. 1564–1616

154. Sonnets x

THEN hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; 
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, 
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, 
And do not drop in for an after loss: 
Ah! do not, when my heart hath ‘scaped this sorrow,         5
Come in the rearward of a conquer’d woe; 
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, 
To linger out a purposed overthrow. 
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, 
When other petty griefs have done their spite,  10
But in the onset come: so shall I taste 
At first the very worst of fortune’s might; 
  And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, 
  Compared with loss of thee will not seem so!