Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 114
114
Or whether doth my mind being crown'd with you,
Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy, 4
To make of monsters and things indigest
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best,
As fast as objects to his beams assemble? 8
O, 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup: 12
If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin
That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
1 Or whether doth: is it true that
5 indigest: formless
10 kingly: like a king
11 what . . . 'greeing: what agrees with the mind's taste
13, 14 Cf. n.