sonnet no. 18

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 owest;

nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
when in eternal lines to time thou growest:

so long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
so long lives this and this gives life to thee...