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Sonnet XVIII: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

Shakespeare, William
1Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
2Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
3Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
5Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
7And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
9But thy eternal summer shall not fade
10Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
11Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
12When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
13So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
14So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Notes

4] date: duration, period. Back to Line
7] fair: beauty. Back to Line
8] untrimm'd: stripped of its ornament. Back to Line
10] ow'st: "own'st," possessest. Back to Line