My Lover Says It’s Hot Today

With Apologies to William Shakespeare

My Lover Says It’s Hot Today

My lover says it’s hot today

And sweat pervades her every pore.

I say she’s covered with the dew

On glistening skin that I adore.

She asks me if her hair’s in place

And runs her fingers through the curls

I say its fine in every way,

Her hair shines as the sun on pearls.

You try to be on my good side

A sparling gleam now in her eye.

You have no bad side, I maintain

You’re fair from north and south, I sigh.

And she smiles so broadly now,

And what about the west and east?

All across the compass rose,

Your radiance will yet increase.

Your eyes are blinded by the sun

But, when I’m covered by the shade?

Even in the darkest night

Your fulsome beauty will not fade.

Nor drift away, nor ‘ere decline

Even in sweet morning’s sun

And when the darkness does descend

Yes, even then my heart succumbs

Yes I had to memorize this in high school, and the words and rhythm and beautiful flow have stuck with me.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

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.

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines

And often is his gold complexion dimmed:

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest 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.