`Shall I compare thee' and `My mistress' eyes' were both written by Shakespeare and revolve around the theme of love, however, this love is expressed in very different ways.

The form of both sonnets is Shakespearean, as both contain three quatrains with a rhyming scheme of abab cdcd efef, finishing with a rhyming couplet. In "Shall I compare thee" the form gives a sense of movement to the sonnet, providing gradual arguments as to why his beloved is greater than a summer's day, giving the impression that the conclusion he comes to in the rhyming couplet holds great certainty. This rhyming couplet serves to conclude the sonnet, declaring that his beloved's "eternal summer" shall not fade. In "My mistress' eyes" Shakespeare uses the quatrains to expand his descriptions of his mistress, moving from one line comparisons in the first quatrain to two lines in the second and third...