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Sonnet · Love

Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits

by William Shakespeare

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.

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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).

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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 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.
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