Sonnet 83
I never saw that you did painting needAnd therefore to your fair no painting set;I found, or thought I found, you did exceedThe barren tender of a poet's debt;And therefore have I slept in your report,That you yourself being extant well might showHow far a modern quill doth come too short,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. There lives more life in one of your fair eyes Than both your poets can in praise devise.
When I write of you, greatest affection,words but capture the faintest reflection.Even cleverest verseprovides so much worsethan the simplest glance at perfection.