Sonnet · Love
Sonnet 20: A woman's face with nature's own hand painted
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 prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 20: A woman's face with nature's own hand painted” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-20
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 20: A woman's face with nature's own hand painted
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Love, Peace
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 11-syllable lines.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a sonnet, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
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 20: A woman's face with nature's own hand painted 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 5c8bb81c5188925f…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Keep reading
Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
William Shakespeare · 1609
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds
William Shakespeare · 1609
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
William Shakespeare · 1609
14 lines · sonnet