Sonnet 83

1 I never saw that you did painting need,
2 And therefore to your fair no painting set,
3 I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,
4 That barren tender of a poet’s debt:
5 And therefore have I slept in your report,
6 That you yourself being extant well might show,
7 How far a modern quill doth come too short,
8 Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
9 This silence for my sin you did impute,
10 Which shall be most my glory being dumb,
11 For I impair not beauty being mute,
12 When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
13 There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
14 Than both your poets can in praise devise.