It is customary to attribute this line to Shakespeare. But it appears he never actually wrote it. What he did write was this:

"To thee I do commend my watchful soul,
Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes." (Richard III)

Other artists, however, have indeed used the metaphor, both before and after him:

"These lovely lamps, these windows of the soul." (Guilliaume de Salluste)

"This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole." (William Blake)

"The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun." (John Greenleaf Whittier)

And finally, of course, I used it in early 2009 for the title of this photograph. All's well that ends well - as Shakespeare would definitely have said.

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