A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,

Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,

A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted

With shifting change as is false women's fashion,

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,

A man in hue all hues in his controlling,

Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created,

Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,

Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

So is it not with me as with that muse,

Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven it self 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 fixed in heaven's air:

Let them say more that like of hearsay well,

I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

So long as youth and thou are of one date,

But when in thee time's furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate. 

For all that beauty that doth cover thee,

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O therefore love be of thyself so wary,

As I not for my self, but for thee will,