Sonnet 18
1. Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6. And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8. By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
9. But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,
10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
12. When in eternal lines to time thou growest,
13. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Eternal Lines
Dedication: To Elizabeth
An attempt at convincing Elizabeth that her purpose and continuation of life, i.e. her “eternal summer” is for the purpose of providing for the eternal line of her succession. That this is he tells her, what is keeping her alive.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Flattering Elizabeth with the comparison to a summer's day in lines 1 & 2. Lines 3 use the analogy of winter like days and rough weather to compare her treatment of Henry with the implication that still the buds survive and ultimately thrive. Reminding her that summer time has little time left in line 4.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Telling her if Henry's potential is often not seen it is because Heaven has shown too bright on him. In line 7 playing on fair in first referencing Henry and then Elizabeth. Telling her that this decline due to her own actions of not putting things in order or a desirable position.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
Reassuring her that her memory will not fade in line 9. Referring to Henry as "that fair though owest" in line 10. Nor will she be overshadowed in line 11 because in line 12 she will be succeeded by Henry.
couplet (13-14),
Playing on the power of his own verse and Henry to fulfill the prophecy and to sustain them.
Commentary:
One of the most famous of Shakespeare’s sonnets, this sonnet expresses Oxford’s last encouraging words to suggest that there is still hope for Henry. Starting with the message that adversity is often visited on the most delicate and wonderful of things and finishing with the thought of the eternal lines that Henry will become a part no doubt as a result of his future state with kings. In addition Oxford adds the thought that it is in fact Henry and possibly even his poetry’s expression of Henry which actually continues to breath life into Elizabeth.
What should be most apparent by this sonnet however, is as one to the fair youth which clearly does discuss eternity it does not ever mention the need to procreate or create another is any way.
The third couplet speaks of Henry’s existence providing Elizabeth with a metaphorical and veritable eternal summer as she was thus capable of “reproducing” at any time. This I believe is the precursor and the basis for the procreation sonnets to come.
Vendler remarks this is the most familiar of the poems. She evidently never connected her own observation as both an indication of this as greater quality and more maturity of the poet.
However probably the greatest misunderstanding surrounding this poem is that the instance of this in the last line of the couplet do not refer to the poem itself but to the greater topic to which the poet has been addressing. And this I would argue is quite important given that we are about to embark on the "procreation" sonnets. And thus it might be instructive to point out that there is a much easier way to see that procreation as a similitude for recognition of Henry when one understands that the message to him does not contain the language of death and dire warnings to procreate before death.