"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

I love Shakespeare. What could be better for a summer day than this sonnet?

Sonnet 18

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 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.

Read the 1609 Quarto version and commentary here.

Lots more about the Bard:
-Shakespeare Resource Center
-Shakespeare Online
-Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
-Shakespeare Collection at Bartleby.com
-Folger Shakespeare Library

And, for fun, the Shakespearean Insulter.

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