Sonnet · Love

Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old

by William Shakespeare

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1My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

2So long as youth and thou are of one date;

3But when in thee time's furrows I behold,

4Then look I death my days should expiate.

5For all that beauty that doth cover thee,

6Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

7Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:

8How can I then be elder than thou art?

9O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary

10As I, not for myself, but for thee will;

11Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

12As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

13 Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,

14 Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.

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“Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-22

Quick facts

Poem: Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old
Poet: William Shakespeare
Length: 14 lines
Form: Sonnet
Themes: Love, Childhood, Death & Loss

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 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old 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 947ac00826bd2c91…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Sonnet Love Childhood Death & Loss

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