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 dimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st
(From Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18")
Questions:
A. What does "thee" refer to in the first line of the stanza?
B. What figure of speech is used in the fifth line?
C. What is the theme of this poem?
A. beauty in poetry
B. personification
C. A nice summer's day is usually transient, but the beauty inpoom oetry can last for ever. Thus Shakespeare has a faith in the permanence of poctry.
