Sonnet 151

Love is too young to know what conscience is,

Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,

Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.

For thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body’s treason.

My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,

But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee

As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,

He is contented thy poor drudge to be,

To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

No want of conscience hold it that I call

Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

Love comes too early in life to have principles,

But love also leads to a conscience.

So young love, don’t assume that the apples

We eat come from the same province.

See, we are lying near the same lust,

Though I’ve degraded my own soul,

While you have blithely trespassed

On it, pretending all is well.

My soul says one day, maybe you’ll change,

And my body is happy to grow quite content

At the prospect, eager to exchange

Dignity to be your tireless servant.

Still, I don’t lack scruples when my body succumbs.

It will vindicate my soul when your conscience comes.