| Sonnet 26 |
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The first eleven lines of Sonnet 26 in the 1609 Quarto |
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Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written ambassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit:
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul’s thought, all naked, will bestow it;
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tatter’d loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me. |
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—William Shakespeare |
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Sonnet 26 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, and is a part of the Fair Youth sequence.
The sonnet is generally regarded as the end-point or culmination of the group of five preceding poems. It encapsulates several themes not only of Sonnets 20–25, but also of the first thirty-two poems together: the function of writing poems, the effect of class differences, and love.
