Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)

William Shakespeare -  1564- 1616

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

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love edit

Christopher Marlowe -  1564- 1593

Come live with me, and be my love;

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks

By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,

And a thousand fragrant posies;

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair linèd slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy- buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs:

And, if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd- swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May- morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.