Shakespeare, Sonnet #130, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"

Illustration from Charles Sorel's The Extravagant Sheperd (London, 1654)

Lecture Topic: Mockery of the Petrarchan tradition.

  1     My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
  2     Coral is fare more red than her lips' red;
  3     If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
  4     If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
  5     I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
  6     But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
  7     And in some perfumes is there more delight
  8     Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
  9     I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
 10     That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
 11     I grant I never saw a goddess go;
 12     My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
 13        And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare
 14        As any she belied with false compare.