Sonnet 139 Sonnet 139 Sonnet 139 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. Sonnet 139 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form "abab cdcd efef gg" and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 6th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter: Line 3 begins with a common metrical variation, an initial reversal: Initial reversals also occur in lines 5 and 14, and
Sonnet 146 regular lines, and a characteristically Shakespearean use of metrical expectations to emphasize pronouns, suggest that readings with only an initial reversal or a regular meter may be the most appropriate. The sonnet is notable for its uncharacteristically religious tone and call for moral richness, whereas most sonnets treasure earthly qualities of beauty and love. In its vocabulary and vocative address to the soul the sonnet invites comparison with Psalm 146. Although Michael West has persuasively argued that this sonnet is indebted to the medieval genre of poetic dialogues between soul and body, the extent to which sonnet actually presents conventional