Sonnet · Life
Sonnet 103: Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth
1Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,
2That having such a scope to show her pride,
3The argument, all bare, is of more worth
4Than when it hath my added praise beside!
5O! blame me not, if I no more can write!
6Look in your glass, and there appears a face
7That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
8Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
9Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
10To mar the subject that before was well?
11For to no other pass my verses tend
12Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
13 And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,
14 Your own glass shows you when you look in it.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 103: Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-103
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 103: Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Life
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Shakespeare1564–1616
- Source record
- PoetryDBSonnet 103: Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth by william-shakespeare, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 067a5975be435806…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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