Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is perhaps the best known and most well-loved of all his 154 sonnets; it may be the most famous lyric poem in English. It is addressed to a young man of great beauty and promise, and the speaker urges the young man to marry and perpetuate his virtues through children, and warns him about the destructive power of time, age, and moral weakness. Sonnet 18 focuses on the beauty of the young man, and how beauty fades, but his beauty will not because it will be remembered by everyone who reads this poem.