Monday, May 29, 2006

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)

by William Shakespeare

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.

From: Poets.org

Happy First Unofficial Day of Summer everyone...

2 Comments:

Blogger teabird said...

I especially love "the eye of heaven" and "nor shall death brag" - the personifications are so *substantial* that you can see each at the end of a continuum, with the golden summer glowing in between. Lovely choice for today!

3:35 PM  
Blogger Paula said...

I am going back and reading all the poems I have missed. This Sonnet #18 is wonderful for the changing of the guard from Spring to Summer. But as of today, July 24th, this line "...But thy eternal summer shall not fade..." seems most real as I am now wishing for an early cool and crisp Autumn.

1:40 PM  

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