Sunday 11 April 2010

Sonnet 130.

Like most sonnets, this little treasure contains language associated heavily with lovey dovey things: "lips", "snow", "roses", "perfumes". But if you look closely, you'll notice that good old Will is contrasting his "mistress" to these things, as what she is most certainly not.
Of course he ends with the two rhyming couplets which usually turn a poem around, and reveals that he really does love his mistress.
I thought I'd share it with you seeing as it's quite a cute little poem.

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.

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