Open Source Shakespeare

Sonnets

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Act I, Scene 18

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  • Shakespeare. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 240
    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, 245
    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: 250
    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
    So long lives this and this gives life to thee.