Sonnet 18
Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
You are more lovely and more constant:
Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May
And summer is far too short:
At times the sun is too hot,
Or often goes behind the clouds;
And everything beautiful sometime will lose its beauty,
By misfortune or by nature's planned out course.
But your youth shall not fade,
Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;
Nor will death claim you for his own,
Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.
So long as there are people on this earth,
So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.
Sonnet 65
Since brass and stone, earth and sea,
Are subject to death,
How can beauty withstand that destructive force,
When its strength is similar only to a flower?
How will the honeyed breath of summer withstand
The battering storm of time,
When mortality even destroys
Great rocks and gates made of iron?
What a scary thought! For where alas,
Shall time's best jewel (his lover), be hid from time's dark chest?
Or what strong hand can hold back the swift foot of Time?
Who can prevent Time from destroying beauty?
None, unless there is hope in the miracle of my verse,
That it allows my love to shine eternally out of this black ink.
Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
You are more lovely and more constant:
Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May
And summer is far too short:
At times the sun is too hot,
Or often goes behind the clouds;
And everything beautiful sometime will lose its beauty,
By misfortune or by nature's planned out course.
But your youth shall not fade,
Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;
Nor will death claim you for his own,
Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.
So long as there are people on this earth,
So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.
Sonnet 65
Since brass and stone, earth and sea,
Are subject to death,
How can beauty withstand that destructive force,
When its strength is similar only to a flower?
How will the honeyed breath of summer withstand
The battering storm of time,
When mortality even destroys
Great rocks and gates made of iron?
What a scary thought! For where alas,
Shall time's best jewel (his lover), be hid from time's dark chest?
Or what strong hand can hold back the swift foot of Time?
Who can prevent Time from destroying beauty?
None, unless there is hope in the miracle of my verse,
That it allows my love to shine eternally out of this black ink.