English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 124. Ninetieth Sonnet |
| | | William Shakespeare (1564–1616) |
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| 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. | |
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