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Sonnet · Love

Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light

by William Shakespeare

When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,

And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,

And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.

With mine own weakness, being best acquainted,

Upon thy part I can set down a story

Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;

That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:

And I by this will be a gainer too;

For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,

The injuries that to myself I do,

Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.

Such is my love, to thee I so belong,

That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.

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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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