Sonnet Sunday: more Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

It's been a while since I've done Sonnet Sunday, too long. I watched Bright Star again last week and I fell in love with the poetry of Keats all over again.

Sonnet Sunday: Neruda

Sonnet 16, translated by Terence Clarke

I love the clump of earth that you are,
because, from the planetary prairies,
I have no other star. You repeat
the universal multiplications.

Your wide eyes are the light that's left
of the defeated constellations.
Your skin quivers like the trails left
in the rain by the passing meteor.

Of so much of the moon, for me, were your hips,
of the entire sun your deep mouth and its delicacy,
of so much burning light, like shadowed honey,

your heart, charred with long red rays.
And so I pass by your fiery form, kissing you,
planetary and small, my geography, my dove.

Sonnet Sunday: Cummings

Something more contemporary. "Unrealities III" by e.e. cummings:

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always) and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

--turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.

Sonnet Sunday: Shakespeare 138

I haven't done a Sonnet Sunday post since May! National Poetry Month in April exhausted my lust for iambic pentameter, but I think it's time again. After all, we only have three months to prepare ourselves for NPM festivities. I'm coercing the literary society into performing "Random Acts of Poetry" on campus. I knew there were benefits to being president, besides my new nickname- "She who must be obeyed."
So, for your reading pleasure, Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare:

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust,
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

Sonnet Sunday: Open Edition

Since I am running out of favorite sonnets I am opening today's entry up for anyone to post their favorite sonnets. It's either this, or I post one of my rubbish sonnets. No one wants that.
Please, I am desperate for fresh 14-liners.

Sonnet Sunday: Neruda

Sorry it's late: busy day.
Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Sonnet Sunday: Frost

A sonnet by American poet Robert Frost, most famous for his poem "The Road Not Taken." Today, "A Dream Pang":

I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew away,
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
'I dare not--too far in his footsteps stray--
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.'

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide,
But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.

Sonnet Sunday: Millay

A sonnet about love and nature with notes of spring especially by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I for one am delighted by the sun's sudden return.
Sonnet III

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
The summer through, and each departing wing,
And all the nests that the bared branches show,
And all winds that in any weather blow,
And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feet
Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
Of a bird’s wings too high in air to view,—
But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair,—and the long year remembers you.

Sonnet Sunday: Rossetti 2

I thought I would post my Sonnet Sunday entry a day early, I'll be very busy tomorrow and am afraid I'll forget. I've been reading more Christina Rossetti lately, so I thought I'd post another of her sonnets. This one is not about romantic love/torment as many sonnets are, but rather about love between a mother and child:

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.

Sonnet Sunday: Spenser

A contemporary of Shakespeare, he also wrote in the Elizabethan form of sonnet.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

A always feel free to comment on this poem or share a favorite of your own.

Sonnet Sunday: Rossetti

An experiemental sonnet. It starts out in the same form as last week's sonnet (a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet) but shifts out of scheme for the last few lines emphasizing them especially.

The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say:
"Poor child, poor child:" and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:
He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold.

Monday Apologies

I did not do Sonnet Sunday yesterday. No, this was not due to a lack of moral fiber, I did not allow myself to lose interest after only a few weeks. I just thought it would be a complete cliche to post a sonnet on Valentine's Day. True, I probably should have dropped by to remind everyone that an encore presentation of the adorable Northanger Abbey (2007) was on Masterpiece Classic last night, and The Jane Austen Book Club was on Lifetime. It was a night full of Austen.
In my defense, I have been a bit ill and this is the first time I've been on a computer in two days.
This coming week may prove to be quite busy and stressful, but I'll drop by again soon (I hope).

Sonnet Sunday: Browning

Today a sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a poet I should pay more attention to.

IX
Can it be right to give what I can give?
To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
Re-sighing on my lips renunciative
Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live
For all thy adjurations? O my fears,
That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,
So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,
That givers of such gifts as mine are, must
Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!
I will not soil thy purple with my dust,
Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,
Nor give thee any love--which were unjust.
Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.

As always, feel free to contribute a sonnet you wrote or you love.
Also, I must note that many will see that this poem has a different rhyme scheme than the previous two sonnets posted. This is what is known as a Petrarchan sonnet as opposed to the classic Elizabethan sonnet that Shakespeare is famous for.

Sonnet Sunday: Shakespeare

Today I have chosen one of my favorite Shakespearean sonnets that I think doesn't get enough attention.

SONNET 142
Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied.

Anyone care to share their favorite Shakespearean sonnet?

Sonnet Sunday: Keats

I just thought that Sonnet Sunday sounded very nice; Saturdays aren't as disposed to sonnetry and I do so love a little alliteration. This Sunday I'm starting out with Keats in honor of the copy of Bright Star I have on pre-order that should be here next week. I'll be doing a review of it in the paper of the institution of higher education I am currently taking some classes at (purposely ambiguous), that I will also print here.

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

What can I say? I am a sucker for a good sonnet.