Shakespeare's Complete Sonnets Author:William Shakespeare General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1908 Original Publisher: T.F. Unwin Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can sele... more »ct from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: HI TO HIS DARK DISDAINFUL MISTRESS, WHO MAKES FOUL FAIR He will be true in his praise of her -"/ 49 So is it not with me as with that Muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, And every fair with his fair doth rehearse ; Making a couplement of proud compare, With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. O, let me, true in love, but truly write, And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fixt in heaven's air: Let them say more that like of hearsay well ; I will not praise that purpose not to sell. 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 damaskt, red and white, Yet 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. The beauty of her dark complexion In the old age black was not counted fair, Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name ; But now is black beauty's successive heir, And beauty slandered with a bastard shame : Fo...« less