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Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day?, By: William Shakespeare

October 12, 2026 by Editors

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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 dimm’d,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st 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.

Study Notes: Sonnet 18 Summary & Analysis →

Read all of William Shakespeare's poems · About William Shakespeare

More by William Shakespeare

  • Sonnet 116: Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds
  • Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun
  • Sonnet 73: That Time Of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold
  • Sonnet 29: When In Disgrace With Fortune And Men's Eyes
  • Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase

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