Shakespeare's Sonnets Navigator Summary of Sonnet 40 in the Table of Contents Notes for Sonnet 40

Shakespeare's Sonnet 40


  1    Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;
  2    What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
  3    No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
  4    All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
  5    Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,
  6    I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
  7    But yet be blam'd, if thou this self deceivest
  8    By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
  9    I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
 10    Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
 11    And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
 12    To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
 13      Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
 14      Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.

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