Open Source Shakespeare

Sonnets

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Act I, Scene 83

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  • Shakespeare. I never saw that you did painting need
    And therefore to your fair no painting set; 1150
    I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
    The 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, 1155
    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. 1160
    There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
    Than both your poets can in praise devise.