Sonnet 72

Sonnet 72
Detail of old-spelling text
The first five lines of Sonnet 72 in the 1609 Quarto

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C

O, lest the world should task you to recite
What merit liv’d in me, that you should love
After my death (dear love) forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart;
O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you:
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.




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—William Shakespeare[1]

Sonnet 72 is one of 154 sonnets published by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare in 1609. It is one of the Fair Youth Sequence, which includes Sonnet 1 through Sonnet 126.

  1. ^ Shakespeare, William. Duncan-Jones, Katherine. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Bloomsbury Arden 2010. p. 255 ISBN 9781408017975.