William Shakespeare

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;

(from Hamlet, spoken by Hamlet)
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

The Procreation Sonnets are grouped together because they all address the same young man, and all encourage him — with a variety of themes and arguements — to marry and father children (hence 'procreation')
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To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of

When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,

AR no more the heat o' the sun,    Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,    Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust

OM off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sistering vale, My spirits to attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale; Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking ri...

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,

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:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,