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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Love’s Blindness

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

V. Cautions and Complaints

Love’s Blindness

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

Sonnet CXLVIII.

O ME! what eyes hath Love put in my head

Which have no correspondence with true sight!

Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled

That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

What means the world to say it is not so?

If it be not, then love doth well denote

Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: No,

How can it? O how can Love’s eye be true,

That is so vexed with watching and with tears?

No marvel then, though I mistake my view:

The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.

O cunning Love! with tears thou keep’st me blind,

Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find!