High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sonnet 144 (along with Sonnet 138) was published in the Passionate Pilgrim(1599). Shortly before this, Francis Meres referred to Shakespeare`s Sonnets in "his handbook of Elizabethan poetry, Palladis Tamia, or Wit`s Treasurie, published in 1598," which was frequently talked about in the literary centers of London taverns. Shakespeare`s sonnets are mostly addressed to a young man; towards the end of the Sonnets (transition starting at Sonnet 127) the "dark lady" comes on the scene. Several sonnets portray a conflicted relationship between the poetic speaker, the "dark lady" and the young man. Sonnet 144 is one of the most prominent sonnets to address this conflict.