RPO -- William Shakespeare : Shakespeare's Sonnets: Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd

William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
Sonnet 24

1Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd

2Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,

3My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

4And perspective it is best painter's art,

5For through the painter must you see his skill,

6To find where your true image pictur'd lies,

7Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,

8That hath his windows glazèd with thine eyes:

9Now see what good-turns eyes for eyes have done,

10Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

11Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

12Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee.

13 Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;

14 They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

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Shakespeare's Sonnets: As an unperfect actor on the stage next poem in the collection
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Let those who are in favour with their stars

Notes

1] stell'd] depicted, portrayed (OED, "stell," v., 3); steel'd Q ("engraved with steel").

2] table] writing tablet.

4] perspective] "art of drawing solid objects on a plane surface so as to give the same impression of relative position, size, or distance, as the actual objects do when viewed from a particular point" (OED, "perspective," n., 3.a).

9] good-turns] favours.

Online text copyright © 2012, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text:
Publication date note: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): c1v-c2r.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2008
Recent editing: 1:2008/8/22

Form: sonnet
Rhyme: ababcdcdefefgg

Other poems by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'dSonnet 24

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
Sonnet 24