English poem
Sonnet 83: I never saw that you did painting need
I never saw that you did painting need, And therefore to your fair no painting set; I found, or thought I found, you did exceed That barren tender of a poet's debt: And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself, being extant, well might show How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory being dumb; For I impair not beauty being mute, When others would give life, and bring a tomb. There lives more life in one of your fair eyes Than both your poets can in praise devise.
More by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
- Sonnet 80: O! how I faint when I of you do write
- Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make
- Sonnet 82: I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
- Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most, which can say more
- Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still
- Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse
- Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing