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Sonnet · Dreams & Sleep

Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing

by William Shakespeare

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

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Quick facts

Poem
Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing
Poet
William Shakespeare
Length
14 lines
Form
Sonnet
Themes
Dreams & Sleep

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 11-syllable lines.

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Text, source & rights

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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 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing 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 49e6c6062895f1e5
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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