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Home  »  The Oxford Shakespeare  »  Sonnet LXII

William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.

“Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye”

Sonnet LXII

SIN of self-love possesseth all mine eye  
And all my soul and all my every part;  
And for this sin there is no remedy,  
It is so grounded inward in my heart.  
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,          5
No shape so true, no truth of such account;  
And for myself mine own worth do define,  
As I all other in all worths surmount.  
But when my glass shows me myself indeed,  
Beated and chopp’d with tann’d antiquity,   10
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;  
Self so self-loving were iniquity.  
  ’Tis thee, myself,—that for myself I praise,  
  Painting my age with beauty of thy days.