1 Shall compare thee to a summer's day?
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Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of maie,
And summers lease hath all to short a date:
5 Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
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And often is his gold complexion dim'd,
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And every faire from faire sometime declines,
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By chance, or natures changing course untrim'd:
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But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
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10 Nor loose possession of that faire thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wandr'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breath or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
In this sonnet, Shakespeare is creating a mental picture of spring and
summer to compare against his loved one.
He uses the fact that fine and beautiful days are the creation of
nature, and nature is constantly changing all the time. Fine days
never stay the same: 'rough winds' or the sun obscured by clouds, 'and
often is his gold complexion dim'd', can easily mar a fine day.
He talks about these negative factors of change in the first eight
lines, and Shakespeare then uses these ideas to claim that his loved
one will always remain untarnished, speaking of how 'thy eternal
summer shall not fade' and how his loved one has lasting qualities
that will outshine death:
'Nor shall death brag thou wandr'st in his shade'
These thoughts come to a confident, final conclusion that his loved
one's beauty will always be remembered through the sonnet he wrote:
'So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.'
The overall feel to this poem is tender and thought provoking and the
thoughts and feelings of Shakespeare are clearly communicated
throughout the sonnet.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun…
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1 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head.
5 I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, - yet well I know
10 That music hath a far more pleasing sound,
I grant I never saw a goddess go, -
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground,
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any belied with false compare.
Through line one to twelve Shakespeare is describing his mistress by
using descriptions that...
