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Sonnet · Love

Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all

by William Shakespeare

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;

All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.

Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;

But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty:

And yet, love knows it is a greater grief

To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.

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Quick facts

Poem
Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all
Poet
William Shakespeare
Length
14 lines
Form
Sonnet
Themes
Love, Sad

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
Lines run 10-11 syllables (median 11). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.

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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 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all 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 d38923435c7a312f
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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