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Sonnet · Love

Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

by William Shakespeare

Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;

All tongues — the voice of souls — give thee that due,

Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.

Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;

But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,

In other accents do this praise confound

By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.

They look into the beauty of thy mind,

And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;

Then — churls — their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,

To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:

But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,

The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

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Quick facts

Poem
Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Poet
William Shakespeare
Length
14 lines
Form
Sonnet
Themes
Love, Nature, 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 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 69: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view 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 19bf1ae72b73c8ac
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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