O, Never Say That I Was False of Heart is the first line of Sonnet 109 by the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s sonnets were printed in 1609, when the poet was already a well-established playwright. The dates of the poems are unknown. Shakespeare probably wrote the sonnets over a period of years. There are 154 sonnets in the sequence, though some scholars believe that a different author may have written Sonnets 153 and 154, which focus on Cupid, the god of love in Roman mythology. Only two of the sonnets appeared before 1609, in a book of poetry called The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). See Shakespeare, William.
Like almost all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sonnet 109 consists of three quatrains (four-line units) followed by a concluding couplet (two-line unit). Each quatrain has a rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, with the final couplet a rhyming one (gg).
O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify. As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie. That is my home of love; if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reigned All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stained To leave for nothing all thy sum of good; For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.
Sonnet 109 belongs to a large group of sonnets (numbers 1 to 126) that are addressed to an unidentified young man. There are few specific details about the young man or his actual qualities in the sonnets. His youth and beauty become generalized qualities that inspire the poet’s reflections on time, love, and death. In this sonnet, he is the “rose” to which the speaker declares eternal loyalty.
This sonnet is about absence and the difference between physical and spiritual distance. It is composed as a reply to a loved one who has apparently accused the speaker of being unfaithful (“false of heart”). The speaker in the sonnet argues that his soul remains “home” with the loved one, despite the fact that he may have physically traveled away. His temporary departure might suggest a cooled “flame” (where “qualify” means to lessen, or to moderate). But his truest inclination is to return: “if I have ranged…I return again.” There may be a slight suggestion of straying in the speaker’s admission that he has “ranged.” Nevertheless, his essential feelings have not changed. His loyal punctuality is declared in his claim to being “Just to the time” (with “just” also suggesting rightness). With a pun on time, he continues that he is “not with the time exchanged”—that is, not changed by time.
The speaker’s arguments are a sweeping summation of love. Love is everything; without it, the wide universe is declared as “nothing.” Physical absence is meaningless in comparison to such love. The poetic speaker in this sonnet concludes with a bold statement, “thou art my all,” implying that everything else is nothing.
For more information about Shakespeare’s sonnets, see Shakespeare, William (Shakespeare’s poems). See also English literature (Elizabethan poetry); Poetry (Forms) (Renaissance poetry).
