Sonnet · Love
Sonnet 39: O! how thy worth with manners may I sing
1O! how thy worth with manners may I sing,
2When thou art all the better part of me?
3What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
4And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?
5Even for this, let us divided live,
6And our dear love lose name of single one,
7That by this separation I may give
8That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.
9O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,
10Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
11To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
12Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
13 And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
14 By praising him here who doth hence remain.
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“Sonnet 39: O! how thy worth with manners may I sing” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-39
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 39: O! how thy worth with manners may I sing
- 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 39: O! how thy worth with manners may I sing 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 797d84d05b1dfd4b…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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