Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth
Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth - meaning Summary
Beauty Beyond My Praise
The speaker admits his Muse produces impoverished verse because the beloved’s beauty surpasses his creative powers. He asks not to be blamed for failing to praise adequately, arguing that the beloved’s own reflection in a mirror proves that any attempt to improve the portrait would only mar it. The poem claims the subject’s grace cannot be contained by language, so poetry must defer to the direct evidence of the beloved’s appearance.
Read Complete AnalysesAlack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside. O, blame me not if I no more can write! Look in your glass, and there appears a face That overgoes my blunt invention quite, Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. Were it not sinful then striving to mend, To mar the subject that before was well? For to no other pass my verses tend Than of your graces and your gifts to tell; And more, much more than in my verse can sit, Your own glass shows you when you look in it.
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