Sonnet XVIII

William Shakespeare

(1564-1616)

I have no earthly idea why I memorized this sonnet. Maybe it was one of those poems of which I knew the first line and nothing more. It is one of Shakespeare’s more popular sonnets and maybe I just figured I should know it. In any event, it’s in my head now and that’s okay because it is a fine example of a straightforward love poem. Paul McCartney once sang in defense of the “silly love songs” he composed. He asked rhetorically, “What’s wrong with that?” Exactly.

The sonnet has many virtues but distinguishes itself in the final couplet:

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

The person for whom this was written is promised immortality! Why hold back when you are talking about your true love? The promise is made on the strength of the way these words will echo in time. And, sure enough, here I am several centuries later still admiring the poet and his silly love song.

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 dimm’d; 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; Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Anything by Shakespeare is subject to scholarly examination. Is the person for whom the poem is written a man or a woman? Are there double meanings to some of the lines? Did Shakespeare draw inspiration from Ovid? The questions prompt fierce debates and scrupulous study. I appreciate all that, but I remain focused on the sentiment—pure and simple. I recite this for the pleasure of its structure and the perfect couplet at the end.