Sonnet · Love
Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?
Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth: —
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine by thy beauty being false to me.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-41
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Love, Childhood
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).
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a sonnet, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
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 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits 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 497b79b9121c5224…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Keep reading
Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
William Shakespeare · 1609
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds
William Shakespeare · 1609
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
William Shakespeare · 1609
14 lines · sonnet