Arden fast

On the basis of James Fenton's recommendation (in An Introduction to English Poetry, Penguin 2003), I've switched to the Arden version of Shakespeare's plays, from Penguin. A brief glance through has confirmed that the notes on the text are quality and the introduction, albeit a little overfed, is good scholarship.

And, crucially, the textual notes are printed on the same page as the text itself. So no more floundering around between a million different sections of the book. I used to spend more time flicking back and forth, inevitably loosing my place, than actually reading the plays. For me, speed is of the essence.

They also look fantastic in their 3rd edition, printed, it seems, within the past five years. Excellent paper quality and print clarity.

Series editors are Richard Proudfoot (Proudfeet! ahem) Ann Thompson and David Scott Kastan.

Any last words?

Baz Luhrman had his cake and ate it. In the closing scene of his film Romeo + Juliet he engineers a compromise between two dramatic conventions. In the play, Shakespeare makes no specific allowance for Juliet to communicate with Romeo after she has woken from her drug-induced sleep, moments after Romeo knocks back the fatal poison. In most productions, Romeo is already dead by the time she wakes.

TJB Spencer (in the introduction to my Penguin version) points out however, that from the time of Garrick (1717–1779) until the 19th century many productions altered S’ version to allow for some dialogue between the lovers after Juliet wakes up; presumably this is before the poison takes effect on Romeo (incidentally, this would seem to contradict the apothecary’s assurance of its strength in V.1). Directors could presumably then squeeze out every drop of dramatic tragedy as the lovers discover the misunderstanding and Romeo dies by degrees in Juliet’s arms.

Back to Baz. Study his film version. You’ll see that Juliet does indeed wake before Romeo coughs his last. It’s an excellent scene. As Leonardo de Caprio soliloquies over Claire Danes’ ‘dead’ body, he keeps missing by a whisker her signs of life – he brushes her hand, she opens her eyes (then closes them); he strokes her cheek, she moves a finger. He drinks the poison and she sits up a moment later… but it’s too late. De Caprio sees she’s not really dead, they embrace and he tries to talk but can’t due to the poison’s effect. Baz allows the lovers a last emotional embrace, but no speech. It doesn’t look in the least bit contrived and provides a really satisfying conclusion, without enraging the purists.

Pros for altering the text seem to be: more speech for the actor playing Romeo; more emphasis on the tragedy of the lovers; more dramatic tension (see above); greater staging opportunities.

… at the expense of: emphasising the lovers story too much (there are other aspects at work here, like the reconciliation of the Houses later); there’s a bleakness to the fact the lovers didn’t get to say goodbye; a dialogue would necessitate a lot of boring, but important chat between the lovers, in as much as ‘what happened??’ which the audience already knows; butchering the classics.

I’m not sure exactly when S was elevated to the god-like status he holds now; but no director would dream of altering the text significantly today (there is a little room for manoeuvrability in editing S, since the ‘plays’ we read today are complied from various sources, some of which are damaged, incomplete or incomprehensible).

This is a sonnet by Ashley Hickson-Lovence also published on www.Londonpoetrysystems.com in the 'page poems' section.

This is the first time I've featured someone else's work on my blog. Since it is a sonnet and also of the 'Shakesperian' variety, I thought it was a good way to start. Expect more poets in the future.

The Master - Ashley Hickson-Lovence

A pleasing sight from any distance;

Ruby gleaming under the exposed sun.

Heart purring with an eager persistence,

Its penetration through London’s streets has begun.

Ascending up hills and mounting curbs;

She entwines herself within the mesh of the city.

She floats along, and no one is disturbed,

The pride of London that is so pretty.

Pumping with an increased velocity,

She circulates through North, South, East and West.

Why should love, for such beast evoke curiosity?

Is it wrong or uncommon to love the best?

Claret and bright, like the elusive fruit,

She is the heart of London, The Master of routes.

----

I haven't seen any more of Ashley's work, but this is very exciting. By the way, a Shakespearean sonnet follows the rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, where every new letter indicates a new rhyme.

I love the subject matter, here. Not being particularly adventurous with my sonnets' themes (usually they're about love and relationships), I'm in a position to really admire this.

Ashley has completed a book of poems which cover a range of contemporary themes, which as yet, don't seem to have an online life. That's coming, and I'll tell you when it's here.

Xmas madness

Been a busy, tired week so no blogs. Have kept up with the R&J though. Would like to post about S's anthropomorphisms but it might have to wait for when I'm not cheekily tapping away in the office.

Also got my hands on a copy of the Baz Luhrmann film version, which, to be honest, I thought was fantastic at the time. I'll watch it Sunday after most of the xmas party mess is done with.

I also owe a post about sprung rhythm too. Haven't forgotton.

Baz is releasing his first new film since Moulin Rouge soon, called Australia with Hugh Jackman.

Maybe one to miss, I don't know...

Nip and tuck

Picked up a newish little book today called 'An Introduction to English Poetry' by James Fenton. Look inside it here.

So far lots of good points, and a few excellent ones. Fenton is pretty big on formal structure, which is surprising for a book published in 2003, and actually quite refreshing.

I should restate that - it'd be more accurate to say that he's not a fan of those poets who reject rhyme, formal meter and verse outright in favour of the 'open form'. Fenton thinks that boiled down, this form can only be distinguished from prose if we accept that it's written (or spoken aloud) in 'heightened speech', which is characteristic of all poetry.

And of the student of creative writing who wholeheartedly embraces the changes wrought by the modernist literary movement must remember: 'The taste that delighted in the rhythms of rap belonged to the same owner as the one that banished metre from poetry.'

It's a good message. I'm getting a lot more 'structured' in my old age, so this chimes with where I find myself today as a poet.

Fenton offers a great annecdote as well, which you'll have to buy the book to read in full. It compares the perspectives of an African poet and an American counterpart performing at the same event. The African poet, who performed with various instruments, is accused by the American poet of, well, cheating. Having to follow that performance, the American argued, was very tough because the audience had been geed up by the music. Therefore the African was 'selfish'.

The African's comeback was, in a nutshell, that Western poets seem to think they are on a pedestal, that for some reason they have a special right to be listened to, and to be heard with respect. He said that if he performed in a village in Africa he's got to be dead careful otherwise the audience interrupt him and take over the story!

His point was that every scrap of attention and appreciation is valuable and has to be fought for.

I think a lot of poets could do with remembering that in today's society, saturated as it is by entertainment and novella.

And that's the end of today's lesson.

Thanks, Mr Fenton.

Beautifully rendered horror

Just got back from watching the animated film 'Waltz with Bashir', about the Israeli assault on Lebanon in 1982, directed by Ari Folman.


Other names to remember are David Polonskey and Yoni Goodman, art director/illustrator and director of animation, respectively.

I like interesting visuals in films, aka 300, Sin City, Waking Life and so on, and this promised some war, too - an irresistible combination.

It didn't disappoint. Aside from being a very effective (and eventually devastating) portrayal of a segment of the conflict, of which I knew nothing, it offers a fascinating treatment of the subject of memory.

Basically, the director tries to piece together his memories of his experiences in the conflict, which are mysteriously absent. He talks to psychiatrists, and fellow soldiers to try to fill in the blanks of several days leading up to a notorious massacre, and determine what part, if any, he played in it.

The ending packs a huge punch, which left most of the cinema frozen in their seats until well into the final credits. For me, it offered a glimpse into the abyss. And we do need to be reminded of atrocities that almost get forgotten. It's also quite funny, which makes the conclusion, when it comes, even more crushing.

Yes, visually, it's superb. Lapped it up from beginning to end.

Check out the trailer here.

Work in progress

Wings, curling over warming zephyrs
Have won; I cannot rhyme on earth
So leap to flood my new-waxed feathers

In updrafts, rise with all my worth
Canyon high, and rake the ancient rays
In a strafing glide across the sky.

Just the sound of wind, the haze
The earth, a misty emerald eye
And here, flecked with tigered forest swathes

There, creased by flowing silver tracts
Flung thundering from hidden caves.
And higher, 'till the smoking cataracts

Fall away beneath, to where
The West gale drives against the East
Who, in turn, rebuffs the charging air

Poor old Romeo

Yes. At a crucial juncture in Romeo and Juliet. Tybalt, the Capulet, just killed Mercutio dishonourably, leading Romeo, fired with righteous anger, to weigh in and balance the ledger by filleting Tybalt.

I know what happens in this play, after years of cultural absorption, even though I've never read it. But now I see how finely balanced the situation is. The play's disastrous outcome is caused largely by this confrontation which is precipitated by Mercutio, who goads Tybalt into violence after the Capulet hard man had already rejected his challenge.

The interpretation of events as offered by Benvolio favours the Montague Romeo and saves him from possible execution.

Romeo intially tries to stop the fight between the rowdy Mercutio and Tybalt, partly because of his new links to the Capulet (he's just married Juliet in secret so Tybalt is his cousin) and because all are wary of the Duke's threat of death against family members who quarrel openly in the streets.

Yet Tybalt sneakily manages to kill Mercutio. Romeo blames himself for turning down Tybalt's offer of a duel in the first place (Tybalt's initial quibble was with Romeo), a choice which Mercutio condemed at the time as a 'vile submission'. Romeo, believing his marriage to have made him 'effeminate', thus assumes partial responsibility for Mercutio's death and curses his earlier mildness.

And thus Romeo, getting nowhere fast on the path of peace, changes tack, avenges Mercutio, risking execution or, as it happens, exile. For a revenge hero, this is the only honourable thing to do. Yet Romeo who was up to now a love-struck teenager has become a killer.

Like I said, the situation is poised so delicately, that blame cannot be easily apportioned for what comes later. Fate, it seems, works in the details, not simply in the broad brush strokes we normally assign to it. The inevitability with which the tragedy proceeds feels naturalistic, and truly 'meant to be'.

To me this is how the world really works. We like to find straightforward rationale for actions, or a narrative that explains why something happened, or indeed, who was to blame.

Compare this with the tragedy of Othello, wherein all the trouble comes from one direction - Iago. Doesn't that character's single-minded maliciousness seem a bit of a blunt instrument dramatically, when compared to the scarily fluid train of events in Romeo and Juliet, where no-one can really determine who 'caused' the tragedy?

Poor old Romeo.

J

Tales from... Ted

I've been reading Ted Hughes' Tales from Ovid, to be precise, the story of Narcissus, the beautiful boy doomed to fall in love with his own reflection.

A passage stood out for me, when poor Narcissus laments his impossible love:

'Who are you? Come out. Come up
Onto the land. I never saw beauty
To compare with yours. Oh why do you always
Dodge away at the last moment
And leave me with my arms full of nothing
But water and the memory of an image.
It cannot be my ugliness
Or my age that repels you,
If all the nymphs are so crazy about me.
Your face is full of love
As your eyes look into my eyes
I see it, and my hope shakes me.
I stretch my arms to you, you stretch yours
As eagerly to me. You laugh when I laugh.
I have watched your tears through my tears.
When I tell you my love I see your lips
Seeming to tell me yours - though I cannot hear it.'

Starting with Narcissus, Hughes is opening up into a broader theme of unfulfillable longing, where time, not body is the barrier; the boy cannot reciprocate himself his own love. That is his 'destitution'. Hughes on the otherhand seems haunted by the ghosts of the past that leave him with 'arms full of nothing/ But water and the memory of an image.'

I can see him sitting seeing, through his tears, the face of Sylvia Plath, his first wife. Perhaps this is Hughes' destitution.

I'm no classics scholar, and I don't know how closely this translation approximates the original. The Dryden et al. version, completed in 1717, and available here doesn't contain a version of this passage. So it's possible Hughes dropped it in, expanding the scope of Narcissus' internal dialogue.

There's probably a technical term for this kind of thing. Elizabeth Cook's Achilles is a recent example of a modern rework of an old story. It's also brilliant.

Thanks to http://phoooonehoooome.blogspot.com/2006/09/very-long-poem.html for the Hughes text.

J

Plays of Shakespeare

I have decided that I need to read Shakespeare. So, I'm going to try to read all the plays before my 27th birthday.. Yes, it's a big undertaking. I feel quite excited right now, like I'm about to leave on a journey - I'll send you postcards.

... And post them up here. As I travel, I'll publish my impressions of what I'm feeling and reading, and generally, anything that jumps out at me. There could be a fair amount of this.

Am I being realistic? Well, the challenge is to read 37 plays before November 19th 2009, which as of today is 321 days away! Blast off. That has to be a good sign.

I've already read several of the works (see below), so that eases the burden. I'd like to read them all really, but I'll leave the ones I've already read till last.

But, as always with the Big Willie, nothing's totally straightforward. It wouldn't be Shakespeare if there weren't a few twists, correct? One problem concerns the order of play. I had intended to read the 37 in chronological order rather than completely randomly, or, say, by category: 'tragedy', 'comedy', and 'history'. I wanted to get a feel for S's development over his writerly life, see what impulses he followed and what avenues he ignored or pursued at length in his next play. Also, I thought this would stop me getting bogged down in 'History', or over inflamed by 'Tragedy'. Simple? Nope.

A quick search of the internet told me that there is no commonly accepted order in which the plays were written and performed. There appears to be a huge variation in people's opinions as what came first, second, third, last etc etc. For the record, I'm going to use the version from William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery (1987) Penguin, which is as follows:

The Two Gentlemen of Verona; The Taming of the Shrew; Henry VI, Part II; Henry VI, Part III; Henry VI, Part I (w. Thomas Nashe?); Titus Andronicus (w. George Peele?); Richard III; The Comedy of Errors; Love’s Labour’s Lost; Richard II; Romeo and Juliet; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; King John; The Merchant of Venice; Henry IV, Part I; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Henry IV, Part II; Much Ado About Nothing; Henry V; Julius Caesar; As You Like It; Hamlet; Twelfth Night; Troilus and Cressida; Measure for Measure; Othello; All’s Well That Ends Well; Timon of Athens (w. Thomas Middleton); King Lear; Macbeth (r. Middleton); Antony and Cleopatra; Pericles (w. George Wilkins); Coriolanus; The Winter’s Tale; Cymbeline; The Tempest; Henry VIII (by Shakespeare and John Fletcher; known in its own time as All is True); The Two Noble Kinsmen (w. Fletcher)

The page which that list is taken from is available here:

http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/static/cs/uk/10/minisites/shakespeare/readmore/chronology.html

At various time, I've already read: The Taming of the Shrew; Hamlet; Macbeth; Twelfth Night; Othello; A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Looking at the unread list, even now it doesn't intimidate me. After all, you can only read one word at a time. Hm, maybe I should be intimidated after all.

I'm not going to stick religiously to this list. I was half-way through Romeo and Juliet when I decided to do this, so it makes sense to finish this fine work first before moving on.

Like any journey, when you get there, things are never anything like how you imagined them to be. But before I leave, I'll point out a few ports of call I'm particularly looking forward to. The Tempest - for the elemental fantastical themes, Titus Andronicus - for the violence, and The Merchant of Venice, for the predicament to end all predicaments.

Wish me luck. And farewell!

J

Chronology of shakespeare's plays

http://www.bardweb.net/plays/timeline.html

new order

This is the first post of a new set. I'll try to update regularly and post some poems up. The old posts need to all be formatted so they look pretty. I don't have the time straight away, and, let's be honest, it's boring. So when I get round to it, I get round to it.

In the meantime. I've been trying to get my head around 'sprung rhythm' which was championed by English poet Gerald Manley Hopkins. GMH was a religious man nearly all of his life, and his body of work has been described as 'love poetry to god'. This is a good start, but my limited reading has shown me that he used poetry to question his faith as much as affirm it.

GMH never claimed to have invented sprung rhythm; in fact, he said it had been present in the work of many English poets, 'from Chaucer down'.

In my next post, I'll try to get to the bottom of the technicalities of sprung rhythm.

J

london poetry systems 01

Outside on Columbia Road, Thursday evening unfolds over East London. Inside the depths of the Fleapit, the launch party of London Poetry Systems is just getting underway…

The LED of a video camera glows conspicuously in the dimness. Someone leaps from the audience, a guy with a perma-smile. He bounds onto the stage and welcomes us warmly to the show. "We've never done this before," says Jef Oswald - LPS poet and co-founder - "We're really excited you could be here. Have a great time. Oh, and say hello to Kuala Lumpur!" (A live video stream carried the night directly to an Anglophone poetry community in that country).

Jef darts off into the audience. Holly Pester, an ever-brightening star, who's taking performance poetry somewhere very else and very cool, takes the stage. Her first poem Srry offers glimpses of objects and scenarios, amputated from their context. The audience delights in its grappling with these stubs of meaning, while the text that appears periodically on the screen behind her, prods us toward peculiar resolutions, at odds with most accepted versions of the world. Her performance is a full-bodied first gulp of LPS vintage.

Holly sets the stage nicely for Jamie Wilkes, whose wiry and witty lines are inlaid with sharply drawn but scattered images, the significance of which is only half apparent. Characters emerged from his poems, somersault, bow and fade: ‘She suffers for her art, but half returns and offers up a beatific pose, balancing the pedals expertly between kitsch and gas.’

Jef's soon back on stage to introduce Cannes award nominee Zan Lyons. Zan is a master of live-sampling. He layers sound upon sound until the solo violin soars amongst a host of its looping peers . At the same time clouds race across the video screen, breaking and reforming, obscuring and revealling a dying blue sun. For a digital one-man band, his show makes a massive impression.

After a short interval LPS co-founder Henry Stead takes the stage. In a collaboration with VJ, Guy Bingley, Henry has fused poetry with live visuals, creating an experience that is somehow not just a poem set against a visual backdrop but a bold new type of expression that encompasses and exceeds both media.

Then the headliner, Inua Ellams cuts a lyrical, shamanic figure. His poetry came at the audience like extended visions of grace, by turns beautiful and devastating. His mesmeric voice melts through the audience, it seems to overturn the embedded stones of mental and physical history.

Overall we were delighted with how the night went. Inua, Zan, Holly, Jamie and all the LPS team managed to concoct that rare atmosphere that makes everyone want to talk to everyone else about what they've just seen.

It was a truly positive and collective experience and we can't wait for the next one, scheduled for 14th August, again at the Fleapit. Hope to see you all there!

Assault on 69 Cropley Street – For anyone who’s made the leap

Follow me over the moonlit wall
Locked out nearer dawn than midnight,
We beat against the door, there’s no-one home
Hoist your leg up, watch the fall,

A rusty bicycle, a smoky tree
Quiet! Beware the sudden window light
Hush dear Sir, we’re just your dream of laughter
Now go, let your legs hang free,

Catch my bag, I hope I closed the zips
My turn – how I feel alive!
Pennies tumble freely from my pocket
As I grasp the ancient bricks…

I slip! And tumble into dark and nettles,
Shut your mouth, I could have died.
This coat’ll never be the same, look
I know it’s yours, don’t worry we’ll settle.

For now, slip through the broken fence, homeward
Thank God, you left the window open,
Up the railings now, we’re almost home
We’re in and look at our reward:

A simple beer, chilled and strong as hell
We’ll share and smoke and sit in glee,
But wait, your arm, what’s that? My friend you’re bleeding
Aha look, I am as well.

the road

The answer is ‘yes’.

I will take that path that widens as I visualise it

Painted in a jolly – or is it bloody? – red

Beset on either side

By Confusion’s white mist

Overcast by crumbling towers of self-doubt…

Then the wind starts up.

Chicken wire waves uncoil in great lashes

And the road becomes a causeway

Of scratched and spilt rocks.

Eaten by the waves, it thins and thins until

I tiptoe along a lumpy vien

Like a slick, pink rope

I need hands, many hands, I need feet

I swing down underneath, like a crazed ape

Teeth bared, howling into the wind

Why did I come here?

I could be safe and dry in Greyland

Not lashed about the fur by a typhoon

Of secondary association, flashbacks

Like forks of lightning,

Pinning last night’s mania to the back

Of my skull

Stink of sulphur, sweat and burning flesh

I’m back I slip

Flailing into nothing but a giant, empty

Bang. There’s the road again

Now comes the pain. Flooding

Around my legs and back

That aren’t at all mine anymore

I’m up and I’m marching, I don’t know where

Down the road, down the road

A black and white pack on my back

A pen cradled in my arms

Loaded with ink and primed

Set on a hair-trigger, but who cocked it?

Who handed me the weapon to start the war?

I try to turn to catch a glimpse

A group of figures huddle round a table

They glance at me, whisper, shrug their shoulders,

One makes a joke, the others’ chuckle.

Then silver-birches and lamposts crackle out of the soil

The road snaps them up

Like match-wood, fashioning at first a knife,

Then a fork then –

I see my face in the nickle dinner platter

I’m walking on.

“Fuck you,” I try to shout, “fuck you.”

But there’s an apple in my mouth.

the Ballard of MacCharlie - for Stuart

Traveller to the dusky Highland –
How quiet your castle keeps in night and day.
Lonely Englishman away,
Awake, I say! And hear London’s demand,


That drum-rolls high over the Pennines –
Grumbles grey under a Northern sky,
Leaps the Weir and Tyneside –
And tip-toes through the maze of muted mines.


Hear the words of this scribe,
Blown with the bittern ‘cross misty fens.
Turn your face to home again,
Recall the treasured ways of your tribe.


Through your own window I can hear
London’s towers clamour with song and cheer,
The hour of your return is near –
At last, the feast of Fortune is here.

The Cyclone

Someone whispers softly in the darkness of a warm and

Sleepless night

Stirring under covers in the silence

Cicadas quiet tonight no chicker-chick chicker-chick

Sally in the yard paces patter-pit patter-pit

Shackle rattles, shackle rattles clack-click

Candle flickers and curtains lift

Tired minds

Drift

Back to drowse and door cracks hiss
Thud of knocking shutters missed
Enter dreams the strains of violent schemes
Percussive impressions
Percussive impressions
Thunder and shake
Thunder and rattle
Awake

Heart bangs and Pitter-patter and
Thumps and booms In the middle rings and rooms
Bars clash Titter-tatter and bash and
Drums loop In the riddle and twist and fuse
Rains lash Rat-a-tat on winding and black
Hands white On the window glass and grasp
Soaking strings Spitter-splat bound and thin
Drown In the middle and down
Tip-tip
Tap
Heart Bangs
Pitter-pitter
Pitter-pitter
Pitter-pitter
Pitter

Pat

Love Snakes

Love snakes around the corners of my room,
Coil and writhe, flicker like second-tickers,
Stretch like smoke across smouldered carpets,
Hiss like whispering, murderous gas from canisters

When I sleep, they wriggle ‘cross my lips,
And down the creases of my back,
And with softly strident tongues,
Riddle subtle muddles in muttered tones

Delightfully, I feel their fangs in me,
Wracked with lust, I twist in fast embrace
Then, mad with thrashings of wakefulness,
I encourage the venom in my vital streams

But come the morning I curse fitful dreams
For my visions of bescaled demons,
And in the mirror, no mark is left,
‘Cept the barest puncture, ‘pon my breast.

Sonnet #3

Love does sack the hearts of us
Disguised as roaming wind it groans
And grows from waft at first, to gust
Till every board and rafter moans

The wise will bolt their shutter’d home
And listen fearful for the sound
That tells the storm has onward blown –
Clement bells across the town.

And there upon the tender ground
They find those with enraptured face
Who dreamed to ride upon the cloud
Who shouldered free from safe embrace.

The wise folk slowly turn away
And live to hide another day

Sonnet #3

Love does sack the hearts of us
Disguised as roaming wind it groans
And grows from waft at first, to gust
Till every board and rafter moans

The wise will bolt their shutter’d home
And listen fearful for the sound
That tells the storm has onward blown –
Clement bells across the town.

And there upon the tender ground
They find those with enraptured face
Who dreamed to ride upon the cloud
Who shouldered free from safe embrace.

The wise folk slowly turn away
And live to hide another day

Sonnet #4

Beside a green reflective pool
Upon a tree-sighed grassy glade
There lay a liar and a fool
Reclining in the noontime shade.

Near them stepped a pretty maid,
With her handsome man in arm,
Said fool: ‘their love is made,
And never would the other harm’

Said liar: ‘I’ve known love’s charm.
In them it’s easily observed,
Like the pool’s unerring calm
- Its bliss is simple, never stirred.’

The maid did dab away a tear,
When on the wind these words did hear.

Sonnet #2

They said at root, our love was flesh
And never was to blossom
Fruits that between us flourished
Though sweet, they took for rotten

Are they so love-dry to’ve forgotten:
Young hearts sleep till woke by Lust,
Who roused them with a similar pattern,
Before the years did grind to rest

No, the early dew of love has passed
For them, who sit by ticking clock
Each others’ wizzened hands do clasp,
Who can but wait for it to stop.

Sweet girl, I think of thee and weep
Tis glad our love were never deep

Sonnet #1

All love is strange to lovers
A form unseen but from afar
A shape, soft to them and no other
And rounded oft by the heart

Till midnight in the quieting parks,
They may step in careless bliss
Love holds the gates of time ajar
Then seals them with a kiss

But lovers to their faults persist;
He does not know the word ‘forever’
She’s had his every lyric twist
And all she hears is ‘never’

Together, they could ne’er happy be
Alone, cruel love, they yearn for thee