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Sonnet · Love

Sonnet 20: A woman's face with nature's own hand painted

by William Shakespeare

1A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,

2Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;

3A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

4With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:

5An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

6Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

7A man in hue all 'hues' in his controlling,

8Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

9And for a woman wert thou first created;

10Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

11And by addition me of thee defeated,

12By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

13 But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,

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

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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.
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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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 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.
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