Sonnet 145 is — in most respects — a fairly typical English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. However this sonnet is unique in the collection because, instead of iambic pentameter, it is written in iambic tetrameter, a poetic metre based on four (rather than five) pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 1st line exemplifies a regular iambic tetrameter: