Sonnet 18

SONNET 18

By 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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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.

Analysis

This poem is about his affection and love towards his lover. The theme of this poem is that his love will last forever and the lover's beauty will be forever remembered. This poem has 4 stanzas and the rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B-C-D-C-D-E-F-E-F-G-G. There is a metaphor in line 1 "comparing the lover to a summer's day", allusion in line 5 "heaven", assonance in line 14 "lives and gives."