World Renown: Shakespeare

NUMBER ONE: William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

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 has 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 sometimes declines,
By chance or nature's changing force untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owns't;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

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

~ Adam B.