Sonnet LXXXVII
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,And like enough thou know’st thy estimate,The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;My bonds in thee are all determinate.For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?And for that riches where is my deserving?The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,And so my patent back again is swerving.Thyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,Or me to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,Comes home again, on better judgement making.Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
Words in this poem
- mistaking n.
- An error; a mistake.
- misprision n.
- The act of misprising; misapprehension; misconception; mistake. [LL. misprisio, or OF. mesprison, prop., a mistaking, but confused with OF. mespris contempt, F. mépris. See 2d Misprise, Misprize, Prison.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet LXXXVII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #1041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXXXVII, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-87.html, id L00105.
Form and metre
Sonnet LXXXVII is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.9 syllables. 12 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic hexameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGG possessingA · estimateB · releasingA · determinateB · grantingC · deservingD · wantingC · swervingD · knowingE · mistakingF · growingE · makingF · flatterG · matterG
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, | 11 | ·/······˘/˘ |
| And like enough thou know’st thy estimate, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; | 11 | ·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| My bonds in thee are all determinate. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| And for that riches where is my deserving? | 11 | ···/˘···˘/˘ |
| The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| And so my patent back again is swerving. | 11 | ···/˘·˘/·/˘ |
| Thyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing, | 11 | ˘/·······/˘ |
| Or me to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking; | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, | 11 | ······˘/˘/˘ |
| Comes home again, on better judgement making. | 11 | ··˘/·/˘/˘/˘ |
| Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.