Shakespeare's Sonnets: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Sonnet 18

Original Text
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): b4r-b4v.
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 dim'd,
7And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8By chance, or nature's changing course, untrim'd:
9But thy eternal summer shall not fade
10Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
11Nor shall death brag thou wandr'st in his shade,
12When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
13    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
14    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Notes

4] date] end-date. Back to Line
7] fair] lovely thing. Back to Line
8] untrim'd] stripped of beauty (OED, "untrim," v., 1; first occurrence). Back to Line
10] ow'st] own'st, owns, and possibly playing on "owes" (as we owe God a life). Back to Line
11] shade] Cf. Psalms 23.4: "the valley of the shadow of death" (from the Lord's Prayer). Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1609
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Rhyme
ababcdcdefefgg
Form
sonnet