Sonnet · Death & Loss
Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
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“Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-3
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Spring, Love
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 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest 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 4960c28d0574e97c…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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