Sonnet · Love
Sonnet 139: O! call not me to justify the wrong
1O! call not me to justify the wrong
2That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
3Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:
4Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
5Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
6Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
7What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might
8Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can bide?
9Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
10Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;
11And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
12That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
13 Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
14 Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 139: O! call not me to justify the wrong” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-139
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 139: O! call not me to justify the wrong
- 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
- 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 139: O! call not me to justify the wrong 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 25bc45556c5c25d6…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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