Shakespeare's Sonnets (1883)/Sonnet 112

by William Shakespeare

For other versions of this work, see Sonnet 112 (Shakespeare).

CXII.

Your love and pity doth the impression fill,
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

You are so strongly in my purpose bred,

That all the world besides methinks are dead.