Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun..."

I have read this sonnet many, many years ago in a very old book about Elizabethan Literature. I couldn't find the book at home, but thanks to Google I can share this poem with you.

It is a bit different from the ones we read today in class. It is not dedicated to a beautiful girl as it is usually done by poets. Does it have only one interpretation or does it have an open one?

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,

Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.