English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 133. One Hundred and Eleventh Sonnet |
| | | William Shakespeare (1564–1616) |
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| O, FOR my sake do you with Fortune chide, | |
| The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, | |
| That did not better for my life provide | |
| Than public means, which public manners breeds. | |
| Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, | 5 |
| And almost thence my nature is subdu’d | |
| To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand. | |
| Pity me then and wish I were renew’d; | |
| Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink | |
| Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection; | 10 |
| No bitterness that I will bitter think, | |
| Nor double penance, to correct correction. | |
| Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye | |
| Even that your pity is enough to cure me. | |
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