Perhaps the most famous sonnet in the English language is William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18”, first published in 1609. 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 dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st 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.

This sonnet is a poetic description of the Statue of Liberty welcoming poor immigrants to the United States. It follows the rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA CDCDCD and is a "Petrarchian" (versus a "Shakespearean") sonnet. The "octave," the first eight lines, describe the statue. In the "sestet," the last six lines, the topic changes, and we hear the words in which the statue is imagined to be speaking. The sonnet is engraved on a bronze plaque within a room inside the base of the statue. The New Colossus Emma Lazarus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Here is a well-known sonnet about sonnets. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is an important English poet. The sonnet originated and was developed outside England, in other countries and in other languages. Wordsworth names important poets who were famous for their sonnets. Scorn not the Sonnet BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!