"My mistress' eyes" William Shakespeare

When I first read this poem, I thought that the man was calling his "mistress" ugly. He says that her eyes are nothing like the sun, and her lips aren't as red as coral, and that her hair is black wires. None of this is appealing. He goes on to talk about her cheeks, her breath, and her voice and how they don't compare to other things. Then I realized that this is satirical, and he is making fun of all the men who say the sun can't shine as bright as their lover's eyes and things like that. He's being realistic more than anything. He doesn't want to lie to his woman and say things that aren't true, when he can compliment her in other ways. In lines 13-14 he says, "I think my love as rare/ As any she belied with false compare." In a way I kind of took this poem as the speaker giving his mistress a backhanded compliment, but we talked about it in class, and decided it's a forehanded comliment, because he points out these things that seem wrong, but then fixes it by saying she is just as rare, or beautiful, as those other women.