Sonnet Thread

Ms. Haiku

I have 4 books of sonnets at work:
Shakespeare
Millay
Neruda
Rilke
I'm sure there are many other sonnet poets. Let's have a sonnet thread. I'll start:

Edna St. Vincent Millay

XXXVII
Believe, if ever the bridges of this town,
Whose towers were builded without fault or stain,
Be taken, and its battlements go down,
No mortal roof shall shelter me again;
I shall not prop a branch against a bough
To hide me from the whipping east or north,
Nor tease to flame a heap of sticks, who know
Am warmed by all the wonders of the earth.
Do you take ship unto some happier shore
In such event, and have not thought for me,
I shall remain;-to share the ruinous floor
With roofs that once were seen far out at sea;
To cheer a mouldering army on the march . . .
And beg from spectres by a broken arch.

olderman

There was a graven image of Desire
Painted with red blood on a ground of gold
Passing between the young men and the old,
And by him Pain, whose body shone like fire,
And Pleasure with gaunt hands that grasped their hire.
Of his left wrist, with fingers clenched and cold,
The insatiable Satiety kept hold,
Walking with feet unshod that pashed the mire.
The senses and the sorrows and the sins,
And the strange loves that suck the breasts of Hate
Till lips and teeth bite in their sharp indenture,
Followed like beasts with flap of wings and fins.
Death stood aloof behind a gaping grate,
Upon whose lock was written Peradventure.

Ms. Haiku

Pablo Neruda #52

You sing, and your voice peels the husk
of the day's grain, your song with the sun and sky,
the pine trees speak with their green tongue:
all the birds of the winter whistle.

The sea fills its cellar with footfalls,
with bells, chains, whimpers,
the tools and the metals jangle,
wheels of the caravan creak.

But I hear only your voice, your voice
soars with the zing and precision of an arrow,
it drops with the gravity of rain,

your voice scatters the highest swords
and returns with its cargo of violets:
it accompanies me through the sky.

Ms. Haiku

Rainer Maria Rilke

#13
Ripe apple, blackberry and banana,
nectarine . . . These all speak
death and life into the mouth . . . I feel . . .
Read it in the features of a child

who's tasting them. This comes from far.
Does all grow slowly nameless in your mouth?
Where words once were, discoveries flow,
set free from the fruit's flesh, amazed.

Dare to say what you call apple.
This sweetness that first condenses, thickens,
and then, finely sublimed in the taste,

grows clear, awake, transparent,
double-sided, sunny, earthly, native--:
O knowing, feeling, happiness--, immense!

olderman

Many will recognize the opening stanza.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Ms. Haiku

Here are the bread-the wine-the table-the house:
a man's needs, and a woman's, and a life's.
Peace whirled through and settled in this place:
the common fire burned, to make this light.

Hail to your two hands, which fly and make
their white creations, the singing and the food:
salve! the wholesomeness of your busy feet;
viva! the ballerina who dances with the broom.

Those rugged rivers of water and of threat,
torturous pavillions of the foam,
incendiary hives and reefs: today

they are this respite, your blood in mine,
this path, starry and blue as the night,
this never-ending simple tenderness.

lovin kind

can only be possible with the grace of god

Ms. Haiku

She had a horror he would die at night.
And sometimes when the light began to fade
She could not keep from noticing how white
The birches looked-and then she would be afraid,
Even with a lamp, to go about the house
And lock the windows; and as night wore on
Toward morning, if a dog howled, or a mouse
Squeaked in the floor, long after it was gone
Her flesh would sit awry on her. By day
She would forget somewhat, and it would seem
A silly thing to go with just this dream
And get a neighbor to come at night and stay.
But it would strike her sometimes, making tea:
She had kept that kettle boiling all night long, for company.

Ms. Haiku

It's today: all of yesterday dropped away
among the fingers of the light and the sleeping eyes.
Tomorrow will come on its green footsteps;
no one can stop the river of the dawn.

No one can stop the river of your hands,
your eyes and their sleepiness, my dearest.
You are the trembling of time, which passes
between the vertical light and the darkening sky.

The sky folds its wings over you,
lifting you, carrying you to my arms
with its punctual, mysterious courtesy.

That's why I sing to the day and to the moon,
to the sea, to time, to all the planets,
to your daily voice, to your nocturnal skin.


I love this stuff!

FinsburyParkCarrots

Th'expence of Spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjurd, murdrous, blouddy full of blame,
Savage, extreame, rude, cruell, not to trust,
Injoy'd no sooner but dispised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swollowed bayt,
On purpose layd to make the taker mad.
Made In pursut and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreame,
A blisse in proofe and provd and very wo,
Before a joy proposd behind a dreame,
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes well,
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.


Shakespeare, Sonnet 129
(original spelling from 1609 quarto, Shake-speares Sonnets)

Ms. Haiku

O this delight, ever new, born of loosened clay!
The first to venture had almost no one's help:
Nevertheless, cities sprang up by blissful harbors,
water and oil filled the jugs.

Gods-we plot them first in emboldened sketches,
which Fate then sullenly destroys.
Yet, they are the immortals. Should we not heed them,
since in the end they will hear us?

We, a race thousands of years old, mothers and fathers
ever more pregnant with the future child
destined to surpass us and then destroy us.

We, the endlessly ventured, how much time we have!
And only close-lipped Death knows what we really are,
and how he always profits when he lends us out.

mariposa

One of my favourites from Cien Sonetos de Amor by Pablo Neruda

Soneto XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

mariposa

bumping up the Sonnet thread!

More Shakespeare...of course.

XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

olderman

mariposa wrote:

bumping up the Sonnet thread!

More Shakespeare...of course.

XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

beautiful. simpy beautiful.

wm. dabbles with poesy.. again..

Ms. Haiku

#28 of Love Sonnets:


Love, from seed to seed, from planet to planet,
the wind with its net through the darkening nations,
war with its bloody shoes,
or even the day, with a thorny night.

Wherever we went, islands or bridges or flags
there were the violins of the fleeting autumn, bullet-laced;
happiness echoing at the rim of the wineglass;
sorrow detaining us, with its lesson of tears.

Through all those republics the wind whipped-
its arrogant pavillions, its glacial hair;
it would return the flowers, later, to their work.

But no withering autumn ever touched us.
In our stable place a love sprouted, grew;
as rightfully empowered as the dew.

olderman

go figure, that mr blake might actually constrain hisself to a form of any kind..

To the Evening Star

Thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro' the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover'd with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.

mariposa

I was about to post that same William Blake sonnet olderman...but you got here first. Ah well.

***

More sonnet for tonight....Elizabeth Barrett Browning's XLIII...my favourite sonnet.

Sonnets from the Portuguese
XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Ms. Haiku

I do not love you as if you were the 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.

Ms. Haiku

Neruda Love Sonnet #56

Get used to seeing the shadow behind me, accept
that your hands will emerge clean from the rancor
as if they were made in the morning of the river.
My love, the salt gave you its crystalline proportions.

Envy suffers, expires, my songs exhaust it;
one by one its sad captains agonize and die.
I say love, and the world fills with doves.
Each syllable of mine makes the spring arrive.

Then there you are-in bloom, my heart, my dearest:
over my eyes like the leaves of the sky,
there you are. I look at you, lying on the earth.

I see the sun bring its buds to your face;
looking up at the heavens I recognize your steps.
O Matilde, my dearest, crown of glory: welcome!

Ms. Haiku

Maybe-though I do not bleed-I am wounded, walking
along one of the rays of your life.
In the middle of the jungle the water stops me,
the rain that falls with its sky.

Then I touch the heart that fell, raining:
there I know it was your eyes
that pierced me, into my grief's vast hinterlands.
And only a shadow's whisper appears,

Who is it? Who is it?, but it has no name,
the leaf or dark water that patters
in the middle of the jungle, deaf along the paths:

so, my love, I knew that I was wounded,
and no one spoke there except the shadows,
the wandering night, the kiss of the rain.

olderman

To Wordsworth

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honored poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,--
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.