Sonnet CCVI:
CCVI
When men distrust me, not because they find
Baseness in me, but basely they mistake
The native sins, which in their natures wake,
For true reflections of the candid mind;
I shall be wholly patient and resigned
To wait time’s judgment on the charge they make,
Nor in my conscious purpose turn or shake,
For all the tribes of fools and rogues combined;
If only thou wilt bear the howl unmoved,
Nor join thy music to the harsher cry,
That louder grows as greater grows the lie.
If I lie only clear and unreproved
Under the pity of thy tender eye,
Clothed in thy grace, and therefore not unloved.
