And To A Winter’s Day Also

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
      (William Shakespeare, sonnet 18)

And To A Winter’s Day Also …

… for isn’t there beauty in a winter’s day?
Not just the frail sunlight sparkling on ice,
the clear skies, the dark holly with those dear
berries; nor even the breathtaking lace
of trees in the cold air. Give these their due
but there is more – for all is stillness; peace.
     Walking, you take my arm, and I am yours.

© John Looker 2016

(For Frances)

This is the second in a short series of poems commemorating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. His 18th sonnet reads as follows:

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.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime 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.