Sonnet · Peace
Sonnet 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair
1Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
2Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
3The better angel is a man right fair,
4The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
5To win me soon to hell, my female evil,
6Tempteth my better angel from my side,
7And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
8Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
9And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,
10Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
11But being both from me, both to each friend,
12I guess one angel in another's hell:
13 Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
14 Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-144
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Peace, Love, Friendship
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 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair 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 9ab8934ada3c3b18…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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