What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill! now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruin’d love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuked to my content,
And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.
Sonnet 119
And there you go! Yeah, I don’t see the sense in giving you one line from a sonnet, so you get all fourteen. The one word here that might throw you is ‘limbeck’, so I’ll tell you that a limbeck is gourd shaped vessel used to distill spirits. Other than that it’s pretty straight forward, so I'll let you work through this one on your own.
This is Patrick Stewart on Instagram. He's posting a sonnet a day to help us all get through this Coronavirus thing.
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