William Shakespeare - 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 ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

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

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Here's an explanation of the sonnet which helped me understand it.

Vertaling in het Nederlands

    door:    Arie van der Krogt

 

Zal ik je met een zomerdag vergelijken?

Veel zachter en veel zonniger ben jij.

Te snel weer moet de tijd van zomer wijken;

De wind striemt soms de bloesems al in mei.

Het hemeloog kan soms verblindend zijn,

En dikwijls is zijn schijn van korte duur,

Waardoor de glans van schoonheid weer verdwijnt

Door 't lot of door de loop van de natuur.

Jouw zomer zal voor eeuwig zomer blijven,

En nooit jouw pracht verloren laten gaan;

De dood zal jou niet in zijn schaduw krijgen,

Wanneer jij in mijn zinnen blijft bestaan.

Zolang als er nog iemand leest en leeft,

Zolang leeft ook de zin die leven geeft.

This sonnet featured on the Writer's Almanac, a service of Minnesota Public Radio, on 14 June 2000, and this page was linked to on their Web site, mentioning further important events on that date in the past. The sonnet was read on the programme by Garrison Keilor (a well known radio personality).
Thanks to Matthew DeLay for letting me know.

Allan Tolosa wrote me that he found a beautiful rendition of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 put to music at this website. The singer's name is Faith Rivera and the song is called "So Long As". I agree with Allan that this quite a nice song!

 
<=== Main poetry page

<=== Music and lyrics page.

 
Jos van Geffen -- Home  |  Site Map  |  Contact Me

last modified: 3 February 2008