Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
First published in Shake-speares Sonnets (London: Thomas Thorpe, 1609); text from Shakespeare’s Sonnets, ed. William J. Rolfe (Harper & Brothers, 1883).
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.