Sonnet No. 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 dimmed

And every fair from fair sometime declines

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed



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 brings life to thee.