The SonnetLove Poetry of the Finest Kind

The Petrarchan Sonnet

71. On His Blindness by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spentEre half my days in this dark world and wide,And that one talent which is death to hideLodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest he returning chide,"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"I fondly ask. But Patience, to preventThat murmur, soon replies: "God doth not needEither man's work or his own gifts: who bestBear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His stateIs kingly; thousands at his bidding speedAnd post o'er land and ocean without rest:They also serve who only stand and wait."

Basic Form of Petrarchan Sonnet

• 1) Rhyme scheme: ABBA ABBA CDE CDE• 2) Structure: 2 Quatrains followed by 2 Tercets• 3) Rhythm: Iambic• 4) Meter: Pentameter

The Shakespearean Sonnet

Sonnet 116 by ShakespeareLet me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove:O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.   If this be error and upon me proved,   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

Basic Form of Shakespearean Sonnet

• 1) Rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG• 2) Structure: 3 Quatrains followed by a Couplet• 3) Rhythm: Iambic• 4) Meter: Pentameter

The Spenserian Sonnet

Happy ye leaves by SpenserHappy ye leaves when as those lily hands,

Which hold my life in their dead-doing might,

Shall handle you and hold in love's soft bands,

Like captives trembling at the victor's sight.

And happy lines, on which with starry light,

Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look

And read the sorrows of my dying sprite,

Written with tears in heart's close-bleeding book.

And happy rhymes bath'd in the sacred brook,

Of Helicon whence she derived is,

When ye behold that Angel's blessed look,

My soul's long-lacked food, my heaven's bliss.

Leaves, lines, and rhymes, seek her to please alone,

Whom if ye please, I care for other none.

Basic Form of Spenserian Sonnet

• 1) Rhyme scheme: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE• 2) Structure: 2 Quatrains followed by 2 Tercets• 3) Rhythm: Iambic• 4) Meter: Pentameter

Sonnet 18

• 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 fadeNor 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.

How Do I Love Thee?

• 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 every day'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.