Eyes

The eyes, in Petrarchan poetry, symbolize attention and attraction. In Elizabethan poems that relied on Petrarchan tropes, the eyes were frequently compared to bright orbs like the sun or the stars. For Shakespeare, however, the eyes of the mistress are definitely "nothing like the sun" (1), suggesting that they are darker than the eye color typically found most attractive. Likely, the speaker is describing a woman with brown eyes instead of blue or green.

Roses

Roses are a symbol of feminine beauty. They are particularly associated with Englishwomen, as in the common expression "an English rose" to describe a fair young woman with a rosy complexion. The reversal of the symbol of the rose in this poem may imply that the mistress is a foreigner, coming from outside the English paradigm of beauty.

The Ground

The ground symbolizes reality. In more typical love poems, lovers are depicted...