Sonnet XVIII
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.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- sometime adv.
- At a past time indefinitely referred to; once; formerly.
- complexion n.
- The state of being complex; complexity. [F. complexion, fr. L. complexio. See Complex, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet XVIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #1041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-18.html, id L00036.
Form and metre
Sonnet XVIII is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGG dayA · temperateB · mayA · dateB · shinesC · dimm'dD · declinesC · untrimm'dD · fadeE · ow'stF · shadeE · grow'stF · seeG · theeG
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Thou art more lovely and more temperate: | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, | 10 | /······/˘· |
| And often is his gold complexion dimm’d, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| And every fair from fair sometime declines, | 10 | ·/˘···/·˘/ |
| By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d: | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| But thy eternal summer shall not fade, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, | 10 | ·········· |
| When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, | 10 | ·········· |
| So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. | 10 | ·········· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.