sonnets of william shakespeare

Sonnet 18

"Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May And summers 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 natures changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,

Nor shall death brag thou wanderest 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."