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“Sonnet 18” by 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 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.

About the poem “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

Few poems in the English language are as instantly recognizable as William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. Opening with the iconic line, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”, this timeless love poem is part of Shakespeare’s 154-sonnet sequence, most of which are believed to have been written in the 1590s.

Summary of Sonnet 18

In this 14-line sonnet, Shakespeare praises the beloved’s beauty, comparing it favorably to a summer’s day. While summer may be lovely, it is fleeting—subject to rough winds, scorching heat, and an eventual decline into autumn. The speaker argues that the beloved’s beauty is more constant, more temperate, and immune to the decay that time brings to all things.

The poem concludes with the bold claim that the beloved will achieve immortality through the enduring power of verse:

“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

Analysis of Sonnet 18

A Celebration of Eternal Beauty Through Poetry

Shakespeare’s use of the sonnet form—a tightly structured 14-line poem with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG—emphasizes both technical mastery and emotional intimacy. At its core, Sonnet 18 is a love poem, but it is also a declaration of art’s ability to preserve memory and beauty forever.

Where nature is cyclical and bound by time, poetry resists decay. The speaker elevates the beloved’s loveliness to something divine, untouchable, and timeless—not by denying mortality, but by using language to triumph over it.

Love Beyond the Season

Unlike the sometimes superficial comparisons in other love poetry of the time, Shakespeare subverts expectations. Rather than praising the beloved as “just like” a summer’s day, the speaker moves beyond that metaphor, arguing that the beloved surpasses summer. Summer fades—but the beloved’s “eternal summer shall not fade.” This conceptual shift turns what begins as a romantic gesture into a deeper reflection on permanence, art, and devotion.

Universal Emotion, Lasting Impact

Sonnet 18 remains one of Shakespeare’s most celebrated works because it speaks to something universal: the human desire to preserve what we love, to fight back against the tide of time, and to express deep emotion with precision and beauty. Its influence can be felt across centuries of poetry, including right here in Arizona’s contemporary love poems.

Explore More Love Poetry on AZPoetry.com

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 reminds us of the emotional power that love poems can carry—then and now. At AZPoetry.com, you’ll find a growing collection of love poems written by poets from across Arizona. Whether you’re looking for romance, heartbreak, longing, or joy, we invite you to discover how local voices are keeping the tradition of love poetry alive in the desert.

👉 Click here to explore Arizona Love Poetry ›

“The Mesa Wind Blows Soft” by Colorado Pete

The Mesa wind blows soft tonight,
The western stars bend low,
Self-shadowed in the firelight
Old dreams, old visions go.

The mesa wind’s a soft caress,
Cool fingers in my hair;
Soft whispers out of lonliness
That breath a lonely prayer…

O mesa wind go far to her
With kisses carried high,
And tell her mountain grasses stir
And ‘wait her passing by;

Go tell her that the mesa trail
Lies yellow in the sun,
And clouds, like dreams, ride white and frail—
Lost longings, one by one.

Summary and Analysis of “The Mesa Wind Blows Soft” by Colorado Pete (1924)

Originally published in The Chicago Tribune in 1924, “The Mesa Wind Blows Soft” by Colorado Pete (the pen name of Arthur Owen Peterson) is a quietly haunting frontier poem rich with longing, landscape, and lyrical intimacy. Written during his years of treatment for tuberculosis in the Southwest, the poem evokes the stark beauty of Arizona’s mesas while exploring themes of solitude, memory, and unfulfilled love.

The poem opens with a soft, almost reverent tone:

The Mesa wind blows soft tonight, / The western stars bend low,
Here, the natural world sets a hushed and mystical backdrop. The “mesa wind” becomes both a gentle presence and a messenger, while the “western stars” bending low suggest an almost sacred stillness, as if nature itself is leaning in to listen to old dreams unravel in the flickering firelight.

In the second stanza, the wind becomes more personal—“cool fingers” and “soft whispers” suggest a human tenderness projected onto the desert wind, as the speaker’s loneliness shapes how he interacts with the world. The wind, like the speaker, “breathes a lonely prayer,” suggesting that the environment shares his sorrow and desire for connection.

The third stanza becomes more direct and emotional. The speaker sends the wind as a courier of love:

O mesa wind go far to her / With kisses carried high,
He asks the wind to tell a distant woman that nature itself—mountain grasses and desert trails—longs for her presence. This use of personification blurs the line between the inner landscape of the speaker and the outer landscape of Arizona. The environment becomes a vessel for emotion.

Finally, the closing stanza solidifies this fusion of love and place:

And clouds, like dreams, ride white and frail— / Lost longings, one by one.
Dreams and clouds drift across the vastness of the mesa, fragile and fleeting. Each cloud carries a lost hope, suggesting the passage of time, impermanence, and the pain of separation. Yet there is still beauty in the longing itself.

A Poem Rooted in Arizona’s Landscape and Spirit

“The Mesa Wind Blows Soft” is a quintessential example of Colorado Pete’s ability to blend personal emotion with the physical features of the American Southwest. Written during his time at the Veterans’ Hospital in Whipple, Arizona, where he was being treated for complications from tuberculosis, this poem reflects both the stillness and grandeur of the Arizona desert and the interior solitude of its speaker.

With its gentle rhythm, vivid imagery, and emotional subtlety, this poem is both a love letter to the land and a quiet elegy for connection lost or never fully realized. The mesa wind may be soft, but its message carries far.

Tag: Love Poetry

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare