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.
