113 The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by William Shakespeare

II

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
That like two spirits do suggest me still;
My better angel is a man right fair,
My worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her fair pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
For being both to me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell:
    The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt,
    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.