Sonnet 1 Sonnet 3 Sonnet 12 Sonnet 18 Sonnet 19 Sonnet 20 Sonnet 29 Sonnet 30 Sonnet 33 Sonnet 55 Sonnet 60 Sonnet 65 Sonnet 71 Sonnet 73 Sonnet 94 Sonnet 106 Sonnet 116 Sonnet 126 Sonnet 127 Sonnet 129 Sonnet 130 Sonnet 138 Sonnet 144 Sonnet 146 Sonnet 147

Sonnet 18

Original Text

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:

Modern English

Should I compare you to a summer's day? You are lovelier than that, and far more gentle. Rough winds tear at the tender buds of May, and summer's hold on the world is always too short.

Original Text

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:

Modern English

Sometimes the sun blazes down too fiercely, and often its golden face is clouded over. Every beautiful thing fades from its beauty at some point, worn down by chance or by nature's indifferent drift.

Original Text

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,

Modern English

But your eternal summer will never fade, nor will you lose the beauty that belongs to you, nor will death boast that you wander in his shadow — for in these timeless lines you grow with time itself.

Original Text

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Modern English

As long as there are people alive who can breathe or see, this poem will live — and it will keep you alive.

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18