How does the poet compare his friend to the summer session and beautiful bud?

Ans: In Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" which belongs to his first sonnet sequence, the poet opens the poem with a question if the poet would compare his friend to a summer's day. The poet considers that his friend is superior to the summer in lasting. And also in contrast to a summer’s day, poet’s friend is more beautiful and temperate. Even summer’s scorching sun is sometime dimmed by cloud or something else; whereas poet’s friend’s quality and beauty is constant. Besides the poet thinks that the spring’s bud having extraordinary beauty loses its beauty and gets an end by the rough wind but his friend’s ‘summer’ i.e. youth and beauty will remain for infinite time.