Sonnet 18 -- William Shakespeare

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 oft' 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 wanderest 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.

-- Posted by Nick

The poem by Shakespeare should be read in conjunction and comparison with the following:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

No lah Singapore where got summer one?

Use your brain and think before you write leh

Your girl is hot but where got like the sun?

Your England very powderful is it?

Later you kena teacher for your wife.

Your poem better go and do edit

Or girl see already run for her life.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Wah lau eh you still want to write like that!

Eternal mean what? She sure need first aid

After she read lor. Come lah, don’t be sad,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

Definitely can use dictionary. -- Nicholas Zeng, 1985 -- present

Sonnet Reversed -- Rupert Brooke

Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights

Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.

Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!

Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,

Settled at Balham by the end of June.

Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,

And in Antofagastas. Still he went

Cityward daily; still she did abide

At home. And both were really quite content

With work and social pleasures. Then they died.

They left three children (besides George, who drank):

The eldest Jane, who married Mr. Bell,

William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,

And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.

-- Posted by Nick

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.