Sonnet 18

[Willedever]

Shakespeare Sonnet 18

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01. Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
02. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
03. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
04. And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
05. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
06. And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
07. And every fair from fair some-time declines,
08. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
09. But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,
10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
12. When in eternal lines to time thou growest,
13. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

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Sonnet 18 is Ophelia's Immortality Sonnet.

You may suppose it means anything - as you like it - so knock yourself
out, but it was inspired by, and has reference to, the Ophelia
character in 'Hamlet.'

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An elucidation:

O Rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia.....

01. Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
02. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

03. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
from their slender slivers in weeping willow trees,
04. And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

05. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
as when the Son glares at you in the Nunnery Scene,
06. And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,
by melancholy;

07. And every fair from fair some-time declines,
when it falls from the tree of life,
08. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

09. But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,
Ophelia, you shall never age,
10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
to the world,

11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
like the Ghost,
12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
as 'Hamlet', now published, becomes known by
more and more people:

13. So long as men can breathe
to speak the lines of 'Hamlet' on stage,
or eyes can see,
to read 'Hamlet' in print,
14. So long lives this,
your story, Ophelia, in 'Hamlet,'
and this gives life to thee.

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"This" is an ambiguous word. It can mean either "this, here" or
"that, there." In this case it means "that," and the "that" is
'Hamlet.'

Thorpe did not publish the Sonnets in the order in which they were
written. Sonnet 99 was written before this Sonnet.