Sonnet XLI, 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 assailed;
And
when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till he have
prevailed?
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 two-fold
troth:
Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being
false to me.
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