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SONNET: 18 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER'S DAY?
Last Line: SO LONG LIVES THIS, AND THIS GIVES LIFE TO THEE.
Subject(s): ADMIRATION; ART & ARTISTS; BEAUTY; CHANGE; FLOWERS; IMMORTALITY; LOVE; ROSES; SUMMER; TRANSIENCE; IMPERMANENCE;

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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest 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.



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