You're in my spot.

Today in class, we-- or roughly fifty percent of "we"-- were asked whether we would feel offended or complimented if somebody recited "My mistress' eyes" for us personally, and I didn't respond because, due to the gelatinous mush of anti-think that was apparently encompassing my brain, I was too slow to decide. But there's definitely something to be said for sincere, trustworthy appreciation, I suppose. Most likely, though, if somebody told me that, I would just wonder, "Why... are you telling me this?"

The question of "tone" has always seemed a little vague to me.... I mean, is satirical a tone? Shakespeare's speaker is satirizing men who write such exaggerated sonnets for their lady-friends, but is that his tone, or is that just the overall subject?

That aside, I think his tone is sort of pompous, in the beginning at least. Then it moves to being a little defensive, maybe, when he says the last three lines. "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."