NO COMPARISON

Today I shall briefly present perhaps the most well known sonnet written by Shakespeare to the Fair Youth, Sonnet 18. Tomorrow I shall shift my attention to the poet's infatuation for a woman. Remember that the first 126 sonnets are dedicated to a young man, while sonnets 127 to 152 are dedicated to a mysterious dark lady. 

I am sure you have all come across the line "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" It has become a classic. This is a simple but very powerful love poem. Apart from its mellifluous simplicity, its strength lies in the eternalising not only of love, but of the physical lover.

In this sonnet Shakespeare simply states that he could compare his friend to a beautiful summer’s day, but actually knows that his Fair Youth is much more perfect. In summer we often get bad days with rough winds that ruin the blossoms. Summer is also short and ends quickly. It is not always mild and lovely, like his friend, who is always so. It also gets too hot or too stormy in summer and everything beautiful ends, either by chance or simply due to the course of nature. But the beauty and brightness of his friend will never fade. More importantly, he shall live forever, because he has been immortalised here in these lines. As long as people live and have eyes to see, this poem will keep him alive.

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.