SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?  <click for cartoon
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 fair complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair some time 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.

                                                                                                                                        William Shakespeare

ANNOTATIONS:

thee ~ you: dich       thou ~ you: du      thy/thine ~ your: dein
temperate: ausgeglichen, maßvoll
bud: Knospe
to dim: (transitive) trüben, verdunkeln, dämpfen/(intransitive) verlöschen etc.
lease: Pacht, Pachtzeit, Zeit
to decline: (obsolete, intransitive): sich trennen   [intransitive: geringer werden/transitive: ablehnen]
complexion: Teint ~ Antlitz, Gesicht [his complexion: the sun = latin: sol: masculine!]  
untrimm(e)d: ~ „seiner Schönheit beraubt“ [Stefan George: „entziert“]
that fair thou ow(e)st: jene Schönheit, die dir eigen ist [to owe ~ own]
to brag [~ to boast]: prahlen, sich rühmen
man/men: der Mensch/die Menschen

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