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 damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I
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.
Form: sonnet: ababcdcdefefggwires.
In Shakespeares times wire was not the everyday commonplace that it is now and was often used in gold and silver jewellry.
Ladies' hair was often compared to golden wire in Elizabethan poetry.
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