Sonnet XVIII: A Winter’s Day

I shan’t thee to a summer’s day compare;
Thou lov’st not temp’rate climes I yet disdain.
Cold shake thy searing winds I find as fair:
For, over most creation, cold doth reign.

Yet burn thou bright and hot as Heaven’s eye;
And cold and dark, as dark is Neptune’s Lair;
And nary cold may pale nor fade to die
Thy nature’s spark so hidden unaware.

So is this edge infinity for me:
And shalt thou–changeless ’til the edge of time,
Whilst draw my breath, and know mine eyes foresee–
Remain, ’til death shall take me, in thy prime.

Then fades’ thy mem’ry’s pain; for few men see
Such life these lines contain, these give to thee.

David Emeron

This sonnet is part of a short, or
possibly at some point, very long
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Sonnet XVIII: (William Shakespeare)

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.