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Poem

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 wand’rest 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.

Short Poem Analysis

"Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day?" (Sonnet 18) is a sonnet written by William Shakespeare. It is one of his most famous and widely anthologized works. The poem compares the beauty of a beloved person to the beauty of a summer's day, but ultimately concludes that the person's beauty is more enduring than that of the fleeting season. The poem is written in iambic pentameter and follows the traditional Shakespearean sonnet structure, consisting of three quatrains and a concluding couplet. The language is simple and accessible, yet the imagery is vivid and evocative, with the use of metaphor and personification. The poem is a celebration of beauty and love, and has been interpreted as a tribute to the enduring power of the human spirit.

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