“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” is a sonnet written by William Shakespeare, first published in 1609. The poem is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and beloved works, and is often studied and anthologized as an example of his mastery of poetic form and language.
The poem is a celebration of beauty, love, and the natural world. In the opening lines, the narrator asks if he should compare his beloved to a summer’s day, but ultimately concludes that such a comparison would be inadequate, as his beloved is more beautiful and more lasting than any fleeting season:
“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:”
The poem goes on to describe the many ways in which the beloved surpasses the beauty and transience of summer, including in the power of her “eternal summer” and the way that her beauty will be remembered and celebrated in the years to come:
“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
The poem is celebrated for its beautiful language, its celebration of love and beauty, and its affirmation of the power of poetry to preserve and celebrate the beauty of the natural world.
POEM:-
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.
