Monday, March 8, 2010

Springtime in Texas



A Shakespearean sonnet is made up of 14 lines, each line with ten syllables, and written in iambic pentameter. Iambic refers to a pattern of an unemphasized syllable follow by an emphasized syllable. The word "delight" is an example since the stress is on the syllable "-light".

The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. The last two lines are a rhyming couplet.

Sonnet 98
by William Shakespeare (1609)

From you have I been absent in the spring
When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:

Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet seem’d it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.


Bluebonnet image by Larry Urqhart

See more Texas wildflowers

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