Second Saturday's Sonnet

To Valentine's Day

By Morris Dean
 
 

 
 
 
Shakespeare asked whether he should compare "thee,"
and, having considered, decided not.
Than summer's day, he thought that she (or he)
was more lovely and temperate, less fraught

with hot outbursts when out from under shade,
less subject than springtime to shaking winds,
and proof against nature's custom to fade
and leave you bereft of comforting friends.

But he acknowledged his lover's sad date
with mortality, foresaw the decline
that was theirs and all mankind's final fate,
and penned eternal lines to serve as shrine:

They would stop his lover from turning gray,
so long as their words lived another day.

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean