Sonnet · Love
Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light
1When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,
2And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
3Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,
4And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
5With mine own weakness, being best acquainted,
6Upon thy part I can set down a story
7Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;
8That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
9And I by this will be a gainer too;
10For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
11The injuries that to myself I do,
12Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
13 Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
14 That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.
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“Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-88
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Love
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 88: When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light 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 c9af5b6b63877dbf…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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