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Shakespeare's Sonnets - Sonnet 95
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Last updated: Fri, Jul 31, 2015
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Shakespeare's Sonnets - Sonnet 95Sonnet 95
95
Synopsis:
In this first of a pair of related poems, the poet accuses the beloved of using beauty to hide a corrupt moral center.
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
4O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;
8Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O, what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot,
12And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill used doth lose his edge.