Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (read by Al Pacino)

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is among the highly acclaimed of the total of 154 sonnets. It addresses the ephemeral charm of a young man and the overriding power of poetry which seeks to immortalize him. It is famed, in part, because it touches upon a very human fear: life, death, and remembrance. It also motivates people to reflect on the strength words hold; to eternalize otherwise perishable beings. Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 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 ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When