Sonet 18 by William Shakespeare compares the beauty of the person addressed to a summer's day, saying they are more lovely and constant. While summer days can be diminished by winds or the sun, and all earthly beauty fades, the eternal beauty and summer of the person will never fade or lose possession of their fairness. Their beauty will live on in the poem for as long as people can experience the world.

1. Sonet 18
By William Shakespeare (1564 –
1616))

2. Shall I compare thee to a summer's
day?
Thou art more lovely and more

3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of
May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a
date:

4. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

6. And every fair from fair sometime
declines,
By chance or nature's
changing
course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer
shall not
fade
Nor lose
possession
of that fair thou
owest;

7. And every fair from fair sometime
declines,
By chance or nature's
changing
course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer
shall not
fade
Nor lose
possession
of that fair thou
owest;

8. Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

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