Sonnet 41 by William Shakespeare

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits

When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,

For still temptation follows where thou art. 4

Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won;

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;

And when a woman woos, what woman’s son

Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed? 8

Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,

And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth: 12

Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.