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shall I compare thee to a summer's day ? (Sonnet 18):summary and analysis



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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wandr'est 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.




Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? is certainly the most celebrated in the sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets. At the outset of the poem the speaker asks a rhetorical question by addressing his beloved:"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?". Further poet states that his love is beyond comparison. As his beloved is milder and lovelier than summer, he can't compare his beloved to a summer's day. In summer, the stormy winds weaken the charming rosebuds. The vitality and vibrance do not last very long. The sun is occasionally very hot and it's golden rays often dim. Even the most beautiful things will eventually vanish its charm accidentally or due to the cosmic law. 


But, his beloved's eternal summer of beauty and splendour shall never diminish. Death can't enjoy it's victory over his beloved as the lines of the poet already immortalized the beauty of his beloved. even after the death the charm and elegance shall remain intact. As long as the human race remains alive and as long as men can read. This verse in fact  is eternal


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