The ocean and its world of far-off sighs, Of meteors, mists that melt in rainbow dyes, The stars and all we guess of them, the swarms The moon that at the sun her wan lip warms, The primal earth, the all-pervading skies, "The primal earth, the all-pervading skies" Stealing its dues of toil: but love forbears.
That makes thy garden look less beautiful,Įven our love my soul should free of tares-Īlas too often leaves the rich soil dull, The errors of the rankest growth they breed. Not ours: there sun and rain, restorative,Īwake the flowers there heavenly smiles forgive Like ruined gardens, scanted of love's seed. Since I have known you I have little heedįor care or pain or fear. "Since I have known you I have little heed" Reveal its form with thine indwelling smile.Īnd live in this pure house a little while. Hand clasped in hand and beating heart to heart,Īnd find from life's dull tumult a sweet spaceĪnd fill each crevice with thy sudden face.Ĭome live in it, for it is thine thy friend Where thou and I may dwell with love apart, "Lo in thine honour I will build a place" Stares awe-struck at the beauty of the storm. That youth with smiling face sees but thy form:Īnd, 'mid the shrieks of the fast sinking wreck,Ī poet, standing on the wave-washed deck, The first and last word of an angel's prayer.Ĭall love and lust: throiugh battle's bloody swarm The poisonous blossom of a devil's curse Hopes that with heaven's highest stars converse: "When in the lonely stillness of the tomb" "Oh heart, why wilt thou suffer evermore?" "In sleep I saw the skies at midnight red" "To list vague music float o'er moonlit meres" "Oh let me dream! Let slumber draw the bars" "Like as a stream, that, having climbed a hill" "As wine is sweet of taste to eager lips" "Oh river flowing through the silent night" "As a flower springs up out of dark and cold" "As fresh and faded leaves grown on one tree" "I dreamed that twixt two fair far-sundered spheres" "The darkness swallows up the feeble light" "How canst thou shape thy lips to call me friend?" "Lo the same moon, that lights one dreamy sky" "Is not this cruel that thou, poor child, must look" "As the faint ghost of a forgotten strain"
"The sweet-souled instrument in silence stands" "My heart's love is a miser, and his hoard" "The wanderer, journeying through the midnight wood" "Loosed from strange hands into the wet wild night" "Why in her absence doth the world appear" "A cut rose set in water, poor sick wraith" "Thy picture's lips of mute and moveless art" "Ay as from dreams of some old glorious fight" "As I go musing through this mournful land" "Yes thou must die: I can but borrow thee" "Sweetest, I have not slept these two nights past" "What though I tread the thorny path of pain" "Can this our Love, as the old sage dared to deem" "There is a secret all true lovers share" "Love's folly in others seemeth such no less" "The sea's wide bounds are yet not wide enough" "Loved once for ever loved: how surely sounds" "'Noblesse oblige:' it was a simple creed"
"Sweet lady mine, behold this desolate world" "The poor dumb creatures of the field, that call" "The slumberous stillness of the summer noon" "Kisses are sweetest under covering hair" "Lo every leaf that dances in the glades" "How love ran on with us his varying course" "Hast thou, lone-standing by the forest's verge" In the example below, one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, he collapses several words with apostrophes so they fit within the requisite number of ten syllables per line: the two syllables of owest down one for ow’st, the three syllables of wanderest down to two for wand’rest, and the two syllables of growest down one for grow’st.Love Sonnets Love Sonnets By John Barlas (pseud. Iambic pentameter also de-emphasizes the rhyme at the end of each line, since it falls on one of the regularly accented syllables, therefore giving it no more weight in the line than any of the other accented syllables. This allowed the flow of each line of poetry to seem as familiar as possible to both readers and listeners. Writers in Shakespeare’s era believed that iambic pentameter most closely matched the normal speaking patterns of native English speakers. Each line is written in iambic pentameter, meaning that each lines contains exactly ten syllables, every other one accented. Shakespeare also followed another rule that was popular during his era but far less now.