Shakespeare's Sonnets (1883)/Sonnet 18

by William Shakespeare

For other versions of this work, see Sonnet 18 (Shakespeare).

XVIII.

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 dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
⁠So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
⁠So long lives this and this gives life to thee.