Sonnet CX: Alas, 'tis True I have Gone here and there

By William Shakespeare 1564–1616 William Shakespeare

Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new.

Most true it is that I have look'd on truth

Askance and strangely: but, by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.

Now all is done, have what shall have no end!

Mine appetite, I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

Biography

While William Shakespeare's reputation is based primarily on his plays, he became famous first as a poet. With the partial exception of the Sonnets (1609), quarried since the early nineteenth century for autobiographical secrets allegedly encoded in them, the nondramatic writings have traditionally been pushed to the margins of the Shakespeare industry. Yet the study of his nondramatic poetry can illuminate Shakespeare's . . .

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