Sonnet · Dreams & Sleep
Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing
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.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-87
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
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 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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