Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 "Shall I Compare Thee to A
Summer's Day" addresses a loved one whose beauty far outstrips that of nature's. The
lines you are referring to are as follows:
And every fair from fair sometime
declines,
By chance or nature's changing course
untrimm'd
Until these lines,
the speaker explains that nature's beauty is imperfect--a summer day can be too hot,
too windy, cloudy, or short. Surely his beloved's beauty has none of these
imperfections.
In the lines that you have questioned, the
speaker gives another reason that his beloved's beauty is superior: it is eternal. You
are correct in your inference that "fair" refers to beauty. In this case, the speaker
declares that nature's beauty can become less so "by chance" or by "nature's changing
course untrimm'd." "Chance" most likely means circumstances, such as injury or
sickness, that are beyond our control. The reference to nature and its seasons most
likely refers to age that is certain to occur, phenomenon that happens in nature and in
humans.
The subject's beauty will not change because of
circumstance or age as long as the speaker's poem lives. He has eternalized the
subject's beauty through his poem.
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