Shakespeare's SonnetsWilliam Shakespeare
poetry · Item 129
A reason to turn the page
Lust poses as heaven and delivers hell—why do we keep chasing the pleasure that becomes our undoing?
Discovery 14 of 15CXXIX
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action: and till action, lust Is perjur’d, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait, On purpose laid to make the taker mad: Mad in pursuit and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy propos’d; behind a dream. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.