Sonnet 18

William Shakespeare

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 owst,
Nor shall death brag thou wandrest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou growst.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Analysis
Follow the steps in your Poetry Analysis handout in your standards journal, to analyze this
poem. Make sure to take Focused Notes as you go.
Reflection
Make a connection with the poem. How can you relate to it?
Think about what beauty means to you? The speaker chose to talk about beauty by comparing
it to different things (e.g. compares beauty to a summers day); how would YOU describe
beauty and what would you compare it to? Why?
(125 words)