Sonnet CIX: O! never say that I was false of heart

By William Shakespeare 1564–1616 William Shakespeare

O! never say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.

As easy might I from myself depart

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:

That is my home of love; if I have ranged,

Like him that travels, I return again,

Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,

So that myself bring water for my stain.

Never believe, though in my nature reigned

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

That it could so preposterously be stained,

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;

For nothing this wide universe I call,

Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

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 . . .

Continue reading this biography