Ten final couplets of Shakespearian sonnets:
- Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be. - But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. - This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have, that which it fears to lose. - Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue. - If my slight muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. - To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill. - So I return rebuk'd to my content,
And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent. - For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. - And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so. - Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.
The links lead to the sonnets in which the couplets quoted above are found. Go ahead, read them! They're pretty good.
