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Shakespeare's Sonnets - Sonnet 142
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Last updated: Fri, Jul 31, 2015
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Shakespeare's Sonnets - Sonnet 142Sonnet 142
142
Synopsis:
The poet accuses the woman of scorning his love not out of virtue but because she is busy making adulterous love elsewhere.
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving.
O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
4And thou shalt find it merits not reproving.
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
8Robbed others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov’st those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee;
Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,
12Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied.