Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Poem & Summary)

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(Poem & Summary) 

 

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.

In this sonnet, the poet does not want to compare his friend’s beauty to the beauty of a day in summer season. He believes that his friend his milder, more calm and more beautiful, than the beauty of a day of summer. The beauty, which we witness in a summer’s day, is very short lived. The good and beautiful flowers are shaken away and broken down by wild winds, hence, their beauty is short lived.

During summer, the sun is sometimes very hot and dazzles very brightly, but sometimes when its rays are covered by clouds, its shine becomes dim. Every beautiful thing in this world loses its beauty and charm, either suddenly or in due course of time. But the beauty of his friend is eternal and will never become less. It is immortal it will neither fade nor decline.

The poet is confident that his friend’s beauty would not be taken away even after his death. It is eternal and permanent. It would increase with the passage of time. He says that he has immortalized his friend’s beauty through this sonnet, and as long as this sonnet would be read by people, his friend’s beauty would remain alive.

The poet points out that every beautiful thing in nature is sure to decline either abruptly or in due course of nature’s time. But the intellectual and spiritual beauty of his friend W.H. is eternal as it cannot be diminished by the passing of time like other objects. It, on the other hand, will grow permanent because it has been immortalized through this sonnet. So long as this written literature remains, and people read this poem, the beauty of his friend will survive unlike other objects of beauty.

The theme of this sonnets is the permanence and supremacy of love. The poet gives an assurance of poetic immortality, love and friendship. So long as the written word remains and this poem is read in future, the beauty of his friend, and the poets’ love for his friend would remain alive in the heart, eyes and mind of the readers. It proves the power of written words, which would prove mightier than the law of nature.

This sonnet has been composed in the format of English Sonnet, popularly known as the Shakespearean Sonnet. It has three quatrains of four lines each and a two lines couplet at the end. The style is very wholesome and powerful. It catches the attention of the reader and makes him believe to be true whatever he reads.