Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Best Sonnet by Shakespeare

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Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is among the highly acclaimed of the total of 154 sonnets. It addresses the ephemeral charm of a young man and the overriding power of poetry which seeks to immortalize him. It is famed, in part, because it touches upon a very human fear: life, death, and remembrance. It also motivates people to reflect on the strength words hold; to eternalize otherwise perishable beings.

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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.

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