Answer: Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” can be characterized as one continuous metaphor in which the speaker compares his sweetheart to a summer day. The summer, which he characterizes as having “rough winds,” is more “temperate,” he continues, than his beloved.
The poem repeatedly asks, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Shakespeare, the speaker, compares his beloved to be more beautiful than the analogy can possibly capture.
He also implies that his beloved will always preserve her youth and energy for him by saying that she has a better complexion than the sun, which frequently ages. More than that, he promises that no matter how much time passes, his beloved will always retain her youthful shine.
She is shown as having endless youth by the metaphorical phrase, “… But thy eternal summer shall not fade.”
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