Sonnet 18

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 ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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

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 ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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