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Sonnet 129
Project Gutenberg eBook #1041, Shakespeare's Sonnets
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Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #1041, Shakespeare's Sonnets Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1041 Public domain basis: Complete text of the 154 sonnets. Public domain. Coverage: Complete individual poem extracted from parent edition shakespeares-sonnets at bytes 80196-80807; checksum e0ca50560c2f80a336e882ddd99723adcf268a2583ea1c6ff8eb0f373a4989fc.
# Sonnet 129
Sonnet 129
CXXIX
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action: and till action, lust Is perjur’d, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait, On purpose laid to make the taker mad: Mad in pursuit and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy propos’d; behind a dream. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.