June 1-30 Challenge

Day 14 Fourteen Line Poem

June 14, 1578. Fourteen-year-old William Shakespeare wrote his first sonnet.

Actually, I made that up. Shakespeare really was 14 in 1578, and he did write sonnets. But no one knows when he wrote his first sonnet. Today may be the day you write your first sonnet, though.

Write a poem of at least fourteen lines. You may want to try writing a sonnet, but any fourteen line poem will do.

A sonnet is a poem written in fourteen lines with each line usually having ten syllables. There are various rhyming options for sonnets.  Shakespeare used the rhyming pattern: ABAB CDCD EDED GG.

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I’d like to say that here’s a sonnet that I rattled up in half an hour, but I have to give credit to the great man himself. My poetry writing is abysmal at its best, non existent at its worse, and I believe my teeth are stopping me from any creativity today.

This is my favorite poem, sonnet 18. Fire away:

Shakespeare’s Sonnet XVlll

SHall I compare thee to a Summers day?
Thou art more louely and more temperate:
Rough windes do ſhake the darling buds of Maie,
And Sommers leaſe hath all too ſhorte a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heauen ſhines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,
And euery faire from faire ſome-time declines,
By chance,or natures changing courſe vntrim’d:
But thy eternall Sommer ſhall not fade,
Nor looſe poſſeſſion of that faire thou ow’ſt,
Nor ſhall death brag thou wandr’ſt in his ſhade,
When in eternall lines to time thou grow’ſt,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can ſee,
So long liues this,and this giues life to thee.

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http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/18