Shakespeare's Sonnets: Love is too young to know what conscience is

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Love is too young to know what conscience is

Sonnet 151

Original Text
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): i4r-i4v.
1Love is too young to know what conscience is,
2Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
3Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
4Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
5For thou betraying me, I do betray
6My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
7My soul doth tell my body that he may
8Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason
9But rising at thy name doth point out thee
10As his triumphant prize; proud of this pride,
11He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
12To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
13    No want of conscience hold it that I call
14    Her "love" for whose dear love I rise and fall.

Notes

1] Love is too young] like Cupid. Back to Line
3] urge not] do not complain about. Back to Line
6] Extrametrical, with line 8. Back to Line
8] flesh] my body, alluding to the penis. Back to Line
9] rising] becoming erect, rebelling. Back to Line
11] He] "my soul" (7). Back to Line
12] stand] become erect. Back to Line
13] No want of conscience hold it that] Judge it no lack of conscience that. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Rhyme
ababcdcdefefgg
Form
sonnet