Sonnet Cxl

William Shakespeare

     Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
     My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
     Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
     The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
     If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
     Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
     As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
     No news but health from their physicians know;
     For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
     And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
     Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
     Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,
     That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
     Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

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