Sonnet · Love
Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart
1O! never say that I was false of heart,
2Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,
3As easy might I from my self depart
4As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
5That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,
6Like him that travels, I return again;
7Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd,
8So that myself bring water for my stain.
9Never believe though in my nature reign'd,
10All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
11That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
12To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
13 For nothing this wide universe I call,
14 Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-109
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Love, Nature, Peace
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Shakespeare1564–1616
- Source record
- PoetryDBSonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart by william-shakespeare, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 a2c74874febf9d60…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.