Sonnet 18 (Shakespeare)

A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#18

Synopsis:

In a radical departure from the previous sonnets, the young man’s beauty, here more perfect even than a day in summer, is not threatened by Time or Death, since he will live in perfection forever in the poet’s verses.

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.

 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)