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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. blck wires glow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked red and white,
But no such rose 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 hatch 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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This sonnet compares th speaker's love to a number of other beauties and never in the lover's favor. Her eyes are "nothing like the sun," her lips are less red than coral; compared to white snow, her breasts are duncolored, and her hairs are like black wires on her head. In the second quatrain, the speaker says he has seen roses separated by color into red and white, but he sees no such roses in his mistress's cheeks; and he says the breath that "reeks" from his mistress is less delightful than perfume. In the third quatrain he admits that, though he loves her voice, music "hath a far more pleasing sound," and that, though he has never seen a goddess, hes mistress walks on the ground. In the couplet, however, the speaker declares that "by heav'n," he thinks his love as rare and valuable "as any she belied with false compare"--that is, any love in which false comparisons were invoked to describe the loved one's beauty.