Sonnets Assignment #2

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (A)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (B)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (A)
And summer's lease hath all to short a date. (B)

Okay.. here I think he is saying the positive things about whoever he is talking about. Pointing out how much better she is than the summer's day.

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Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (C)
And often is his gold complextion dimmed, (D)
And every fair from fair sometimes declines, (C)
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed. (D)

Here I think he is pointing out the negatives about the summer's day. So he is still saying she is more beautiful, but from a different standpoint.

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But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (E)
Nor lose possesion of that fair thou owest, (F)
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade (E)
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st. (F)

He is still comparing the two, but I don't think it is about her getting the upper hand now. I think he is saying that even though she is more beautiful, she will eventually die but nature will go on being beautiful.

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So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, (G)
So long lives this, and gives life to thee. (G)

I think here he is saying that as long as nature (like trees) lives on, it will give us life and air to breathe.







My love is like to ice, and I to fire; (A)
How comes it then that this her cold so great (B)
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, (A)
But harder grows the more I her entreat? (B)

So she is ice and he is fire. Which obviously makes a conflict. He wants to know why the heat doesn't make her leave and why instead it fuels his obsession for her the more he pursues her.

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Or how comes it that my exceeding heat (B)
Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, (C)
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, (B)
And feel my flames augmented manifold? (C)

Here he wants to know why he is entranced by her. Why is his love growing in intensity when it should be extinguished by their differences.

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What more miraculous thing may be told (C)
That fire which all thing melts, should harden ice, (D)
And ice which is congealed with senseless cold, (C)
Should kindle fire by wonderful device? (D)

He is asking why rather than ruin things it is making them more intense. It is proven that fire melts ice, yet the ice is only getting harder.. And rather than being numb and feeling nothing, she is feeling for him too.

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Such is the power of love in gentle mind, (E)
That it can alter all the course of kind. (E)

He just kind of says that this proves that love conquers all. That no matter how insane or against the rules it is, love will still remain strong and has the power to alter the way things should be or end up.