Shakespeare's Sonnets: Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press

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Be wise as thou art cruel, do not pressMy tongue-tied patience with too much disdainLest 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 madAnd in my madness might speak ill of thee.Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. That I may not be so, nor thou belied, Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

© William Shakespeare