Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Shakespeare and the darling buds of May

This is the sonnet I mentioned yesterday when we discussed Rosetti's sonnet.

Sonnet XVIII

1. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

1 comment:

  1. Woof: But you do know that this...and many other sonnets (like most of them) were written for a dude. Gotta wait for stuff beyond 116, say, for the Dark Lady stuff.

    Old Geezer

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