Skip to content
ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students

Sonnet 83: I never saw that you did painting need

William Shakespeare·1564–1616
Lines:14Movement:English Renaissance
I never saw that you did painting need,And therefore to your fair no painting set;I found, or thought I found, you did exceedThat 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.