The Sunday Poem: Shakespeare

I'm a little late with the weekly poem today - I've been waylaid by the gorgeous summery weather we've been having!

Maybe the most famous of 'sunny day' poems (even though it does not explore the subject matter) - is Shakespeare's infamous sonnet and love poem 'Shall I Compare Thee?' in which the bard compares his beloved muse to a summer's day.

And how can you better that simile? Summer's days are the epitome of happiness with everyone's spirits uplifted as if by magic. The ultimate compliment indeed to be compared to one

I personally love this poem for its lounge-worthy tone, its breezy shuffling manner of thought and the delighted revelling in a lover's perfection that parallels to that incomparable contentment of lying in and basking up the sun's rays, with not a care in the world. (No, not even aging, Mr S...)

Enjoying the sunshine,

~ Siobhán

Sonnet 18 - 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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.