Shall I compare thee to a holiday?

Thou art more deadly and more strenuous:

Rough winds don't quell the commandment to stay,

And bonds betwixt countries grow tenuous:

In thee we see’st the twilight of mankind

As after sunset fadeth in the east;

Which by and by black night doth leave behind

Abandoned streets, where storefronts lay deceased.

Yet in these times folks are still devising,

And cook, and play, and sing their song of woes

Which goes, like lark at dawn of day arising:

This, too, shall pass, as water ebbs and flows,

And when it has, and poets cite its reign,

There shall be nothing--only we remain.