LIFE AS A HUMAN

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

February 14th – Valentine’s Day comes in the middle of a month that for many people feels like the apex of winter. There is still an urge to hibernate and withdraw from the world with only a few brief glances out the window to check on the progress of spring bulbs. In a way, this quasi holiday is perfectly timed. Whether single, dating, married, widowed or divorced, it is a fabulous time to take stock of those around you – the one’s you love and those who love you. Once, when I was single and feeling sadly alone, I took refuge in Shakespeare’s Love Sonnet 18. I dramatically recited it to my cat after which he sat on my lap and I ate some lovely dark chocolate.

So, if you are looking for that perfect love poem, you need look no further than best-known of the 154 sonnets written by the Bard.

Love 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.