William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet CLI
Love is too
young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not
conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater,
urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my
faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying
me, I do betray
My nobler part to
my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell
my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh
stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy
name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant
prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy
poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs,
fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.
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