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