Sonnet 140
Be wise as thou art cruel: Do not pressMy tongue-tied patience with too much disdain,Lest sorrow lend me words, and words expressThe manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit: Better it were,Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,No news but health from their physicians know.
For if I should despair I should grow mad,And in my madness might speak ill of thee;Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,Mad sland’rers by mad ears believèd be.
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.