Understanding Shakespeare: The Sonnets by Robert A. Albano - HTML preview

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In the final lines, the couplet, the speaker admits that even if those writers could have seen the real young man (instead of just a vision of him), their poetic skills still would not have been great enough to recreate the beauty of the young man. For, the speaker adds, those who are alive and can view the young man with their wondering or amazed eyes lack the words (or "tongues") to praise his beauty.