Sonnet 140: Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

1Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

2My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

3Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

4The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

5If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

6Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so; —

7As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

8No news but health from their physicians know; —

9For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,

10And in my madness might speak ill of thee;

11Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

12Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

13 That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

14 Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.