#sonnet

Sonnet VIII Je vis, je meurs : je me brûle et me noie, J’ai chaud extrême en endurant froidure ; La vie m’est et trop molle et trop dure, J’ai grands ennuis entremêlés de joie. Tout en un coup je ris et je larmoie, Et en plaisir maint grief tourment j’endure, Mon bien s’en va, et à jamais il dure, Tout en un coup je sèche et je verdoie. Ainsi Amour inconstamment me mène Et, quand je pense avoir plus de douleur, Sans y penser je me trouve hors de peine. Puis, quand je crois ma joie être certaine, Et être en haut de mon désiré heur, Il me remet en mon premier malheur. ↗

— Louise Labé

#poems #sonnets #love

Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme, But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn And broils roots out the work of masonry, Nor mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till judgement that yourself arise, You in this, and dwell in lovers eyes. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#fame #memory #monuments #posterity #remembrance

So are you to my thoughts as food to life, or as sweet seasoned showers are to the ground. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#food

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least: Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee,--and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings'. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#art

I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water: I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone. ↗

— Tallulah Bankhead

#bed #could #ditch #dull #get

When I was an undergraduate I had very badly annotated editions of Shakespeare's sonnets, all of which left out the important fact that will has a sexual sense in Shakespeare's sonnets. ↗

— Thom Gunn

#fact #had #i #important #important fact

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, Doth half that glory to the sober west, As those two mourning eyes become thy face: O! let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack ↗

— William Shakespeare

#beauty

Sonnets are guys writing in English, imitating an Italian song form. It was a form definitely sung as often as it was recited. ↗

— Steve Earle

#english #form #guys #imitating #italian

If I wrote in a sonnet form, I would be distorting. Or if I had some great new idea for line breaks and I used it in a poem, but it's really not right for that poem, but I wanted it, that would be distorting. ↗

— Sharon Olds

#distorting #form #great #had #i