William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet, and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth23 April 1564
I know a place where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows.
Short summers lightly have a forward spring.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, But Lust's effect is tempest after sun; Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain, Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done; Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies; Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.
Shall I compare thee to a summer day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate... When in eternal lines to time thou growst So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which.
To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud; And after summer evermore succeeds Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold: So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
... the spring, the summer, The chilling autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world By their increase, now knows not which is which.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.