Open Source Shakespeare

Sonnets

• To print this text, click here
• To save this text, go to your browser's File menu, then select Save As


       

Act I, Scene 22

---

       

  • Shakespeare. My glass shall not persuade me I am old, 295
    So long as youth and thou are of one date;
    But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
    Then look I death my days should expiate.
    For all that beauty that doth cover thee
    Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, 300
    Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
    How can I then be elder than thou art?
    O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
    As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
    Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary 305
    As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
    Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.