Sonnet 145 is one of Shakespeare's sonnets. It forms part of the Dark Lady sequence of sonnets and is the only one written not in iambic pentameter, but instead tetrameter. It is also the Shakespeare sonnet which uses the fewest letters. It is written as a description of the feelings of a man who is so in love with a woman that hearing her say that "she hates" something immediately creates a fear that she is referring to him. But then when she notices how much pain she has caused her lover by saying that she may potentially hate him, she changes the way that she says it to assure him that she hates but does not hate him. Structure 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: × / × / × / × / Those lips that Love's own hand did make (145.1) / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. Line 5 features a common metrical variation, an initial reversal: / × × / × / × / Straight in her heart did mercy come, (145.5) An initial reversal also occurs in line 6, and potentially in line 4. A mid-line reversal occurs in line 14, and potentially in line 11. The meter demands that line 12's "heaven" function as one syllable. This sonnet has generally been considered by critics to be one of Shakespeare's slightest works. Its fairly simple language and syntax, along with the oddity of the meter, have led to suggestions that it was written much earlier than the other, more mature, sonnets. Gurr states, I have not been able to find a single example in the period up to 1582 of an octosyllabic sonnet...no poet besides Shakespeare in this one curious poem wrote an octosyllabic sonnet. (225) Analysis involving Anne Hathaway by Andrew Gurr Though it is placed within the "Dark Lady" sequence, it has been claimed that the poem was originally written for Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's