COLD SHAKESPEARE


Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day?
Thou art more icy and refrigerate:
Warm winds do make the snowman’s fast decay,
And winter’s lease hath yet quite short a fate;
Rarely too bleak the breath of winter curls,
And not for long her azure face is banned;
And even blizzards sometimes cease their swirl,
By happy chance or South Wind’s easing hand;
But thy eternal winter shall not thaw,
Nor lose possession of spikes thou growest;
Nor shall warmth say thou entered through his door,
When a stiffened mind you grind and showest:
So long as men can seethe, or feet can flee,
So long lives thou, and thou gives strife to me.