This is a tetralogy of love sonnets that I wrote with the Shakespearean style. I submitted it to my DevArt and to the associated AG group there, but I haven't submitted them here until now. Each sonnet starts with a line from Shakespeare's 18th sonnet, his most famous. I liked how they turned out; they're better than my previous forays into sonnet writing. Extremely sentimental writing follows. Criticism appreciated.
Summer's Day Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? The days when my soul felt at ease to leave My home, and find rest on the outside way That runs a hundred-nay, thousand!- mile weave. And yet, I lived in utter ignorance Of what it meant to live each day and yearn, Or think in any time but present tense, I found much more that I just had to learn. I raised my eyes, and gazed on straight ahead Where only a light as soft as you shone, Ne'er turning back to look at what was dead Or down below to see how high we've flown. For now our wind-blown journey's just begun As we ascend up to the summer sun.
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Summer's Kiss Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines So as we pass there is no moist relief Except the touch of your sweet mouth on mine's- Oasis in the midst of parching grief! And though a scorching wind may whirl about And vie to snatch you from my bracing grasp, I hold, and beat the wind at its own bout To let it dissipate with one dying rasp. All of this we do without intention; The heat of our moment melts the elements. Though they seek to command our attention, They pale and fade before our very presence. And so the world now fades to darkness warm; Our eyes closed, bodies pressed to fuse one form.
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Summer's Image But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Thy figure shall not perish from my mind: The silhouette of joy, your pretty shade Approached my hands and with them intertwined. Nor shall I rest and pass into the fall Until your face into my mind is seared And flaming, holds my sleeping, dreaming thrall. Imagine I a smile, and all I feared Now disappears upon that stony bench, The altar of old ways I now know not. For the spring of summer cannot quench, But feeds the fire to blaze unbearably hot. And even if the leaves fall from the trees Red embers live to float amid the breeze.
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Summer's Tryst So long as men can breathe or eyes can see Or my own hands can write another word, So long my tongue is able to run free And all my words are able to be heard, I shall love thee. In all the binds and chains The language is subject to, I shall sing In whispers to thine ears my own refrains Of happiness that makes thee everything. So long as thou shalt draw a laughing tear Or fall into this breast that holds my heart, Thou art my joy, my mind, my lady dear. And in this act shall we two play the part: The tenderness that makes the whole earth ours And the love that moves the sun and stars.
