Shakespeare's Sonnets: Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Sonnet 57

1Being your slave, what should I do but tend
2Upon the hours and times of your desire?
3I have no precious time at all to spend,
4Nor services to do till you require.
7Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
8When you have bid your servant once adieu.
9Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
10Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
11But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
12Save where you are, how happy you make those.
13    So true a fool is love, that in your will
14    (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.

Notes

5] world-without-end] OED cites Shakespeare's LLL V.2.799, "A time me thinkes too short, / To make a world-without-end bargaine in." Back to Line
6] sov'reign] soueraine Q. Back to Line
Publication Notes
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): d4v.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Form