A Shakespearean Sonnet Poem

Sonnet 130

(a) My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

(b) Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
(a) If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
(b) If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

(c) I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

(d) But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
(c) And in some perfumes is there more delight
(d) There in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

(e) I love to hear her speak; yet well I know

(e) I love to hear her speak; yet well I know

(f) That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
(e) I grant I never saw a goddess go;
(f) My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground

(g) Any yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

(g) As any she belied with false compare
On His Blindnessby John Milton(1608-1674)

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bar his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon--his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, or our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more than less

Than something simple not yet understood; Last understood;

I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him I will put titlegoodSpen**
Take heed therefore, mine eyes, how ye do stare
Henceforth too rashly on that guileful net,
In which if ever ye entrapped are,
Out of her bands ye by no means shall get.
Folly it were for any being free,
To covet fetters, though they golden be.

Spenserian abab-bcbc-cdcd-ee rhyme scheme.

From Amoretti
Edmund Spenser (c. 1552-1599)

What guile is this, that those her golden tr

esses

She doth attire under a net of gold;

And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses,
That which is gold or hair, may scarce be to
ld?
Is it that mens frail eyes, which gaze too bold,
She may entangle in that golden snare;
And being caught may craftily enfold
Their weaker hearts, which are not yet well aware?
Take heed therefore, mine eyes, how ye do stare
To Fanny

John Keats (1795-1821)

I cry your mercypitylove!aye, love!

Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wande
ring, guileless love,
Unmasked, and being seenwithout a blot!
O! let me have thee whole,allallbe mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,
Yourselfyour soulin pity give me all.
Withhold no atoms atom or I die,-----eng.2eng atom or I die,
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Lifes purposes,the palate of my mind
Losing its gist, and my ambition blind!