Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Shakespeare. 15641616145. Sonnets i
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, | 5 |
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; | 10 |
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest 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. |