English poem
Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all
Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all; What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call; All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more. Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest, I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest; But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, Although thou steal thee all my poverty: And yet, love knows it is a greater grief To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury. Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.
More by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight
- Sonnet 38: How can my muse want subject to invent
- Sonnet 39: O! how thy worth with manners may I sing
- Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
- Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
- Sonnet 42: That thou hast her it is not all my grief
- Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see
- Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought