Sonnet · Love
Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you
1Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,
2Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
3Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,
4And that your love taught it this alchemy,
5To make of monsters and things indigest
6Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
7Creating every bad a perfect best,
8As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
9O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,
10And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:
11Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
12And to his palate doth prepare the cup:
13 If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin
14 That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-114
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Love
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
- Lines run 10-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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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 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you 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 3760eeff576a49e9…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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