sonnet 18

If I compare you to a summer day

You are certainly more beautiful and more pleasant

The wind scatters the leaves on the ground

And the summer time is very short

Sometimes the sun shines too much

At other times it obscures with coldness;

What is beautiful declines in a single day,

In the eternal mutation of nature.

But in you the summer will be eternal,

And the beauty you have you will not lose;

Nor will you reach the sad winter weary:

In these lines with time you will grow.

And as long as there is one being on this earth,

My ardent verses will make you live.