Wednesday, December 2, 2009

In which I am (almost) as awesome as Shakespeare, or, Take that, Thomas Middleton!

In the lyric poetry class I'm taking this semester, we've not only had to read and critically analyze poems, we've also had to produce them in order to examine things like form and meter in a more hands-on way. Though I'm by no means a poet, I am especially proud of the last poem I wrote for class, and I wanted to share it with you. The assignment was to take a quatrain from an existing sonnet that we read and expand it into a full, quasi-original sonnet. This is what I came up with.

(The first quatrain is from Shakespeare's Sonnet 93)

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceive'd husband—so love's face
May still seem love to me, though altered new:
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.


Which ignorance be worse—presuming feign'd
Affection pure, or feigning falsehood right?
Both ask the heart be tightly trained,
And love obscure us from a harsher sight.

If knowledge power is, and dumb be bliss,
Then dumb I'll be, pray gods my lips shut fast!
If thou in secret find another's kiss,
My power's mute, but that our time shall last.

And since the moon cares not for constancy,
I'll just take light from your security.

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What do you think? I'll gladly accept suggestions for titles, as I can't think of any.