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Home  »  The Book of Sorrow  »  William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.

Sonnet: ‘Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now’

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

THEN hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

And do not drop in for an after-loss:

Ah! do not, when my heart hath ’scap’d this sorrow,

Come in the rearward of a conquer’d woe;

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

To linger out a purpos’d overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

When other petty griefs have done their spite,

But in the onset come: so shall I taste

At first the very worst of fortune’s might;

And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

Compar’d with loss of thee will not seem so.