I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
That barren tender of a poet’s debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you yourself, being extant, well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory being dumb;
For I impair not beauty being mute,
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
Than both your poets can in praise devise.
In plain English
I never thought you needed the artifice of flowery language to be beautiful — your reality surpasses what any poet could paint with words. So I stayed silent about you, thinking that your actual self on display would show how inadequate modern verse really is when it tries to capture your true worth.
You blamed me for this silence, but I see it differently. My refusal to write about you is actually my greatest strength. Other poets try so hard with their praise that they end up diminishing you — all that effort becomes almost a kind of death. But I've kept quiet, which means I haven't hurt what you already are.
The truth is simple: one look from your eyes contains more life and vitality than everything both of us poets combined could ever manage to say in our verses.
