Tag: sonnet

Poem-a-day, April 23: sweet thief

35

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense—
Thy adverse party is thy advocate—
And ‘gainst myself a lawful plea commence.
Such civil war is in my love and hate
     That I an accessory needs must be
     To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

***

Happy birth, and death, William Shakespeare.
April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616 (approximate and up for debate)

Poems by William Shakespeare were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 23, 2007; Poem-a-Day April 23, 2009; and Poem-a-Day April 23, 2011.

Poem-a-Day, April 18: pious rape

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon — his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple yet not understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.

*

Hello Friends —

Today’s poem is by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950). Poet Trivia: Millay’s Greenwich Village Bohemian friends called her “Vincent.”

April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out my own eclectic selection of one poem per day for the duration of the month. If you wish to be unsubscribed from this Poem-a-Day email list at any time, please reply to this email with a friendly unsubscribe request (preferably in heroic couplet form). You may also request to add a consenting friend to the list, or even nominate a poem.

To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 17, 2011.