Tag: Charles Best

10 Classic Examples of the Sonnet Form via Interesting Literature

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This post via the Interesting Literature blog caught my attention because I love a good sonnet. A well-written sonnet is a thing of beauty.

I have long been an admirer of the form, and have recommended poems such as John Keats’ ‘When I Have Fears’, John Donne’s ‘Death, Be Not Proud’ or Charles Best’s ’Sonnet of the Moon’ on my blog before. Shakespeare wrote some magnificent sonnets, and Philip Sidney wrote the story of ‘Astrophil and Stella’ in a sequence of 108 sonnets, which is extraordinary!
 
 
Sonnets are hard to write. There are rhyme and rhythm patterns that one must observe and maintain, which force the poet to refine and craft their words meticulously so that no nuances of meaning are lost in the interests of obeying the rules.
 
 
I have written one sonnet of which I am very proud.
 
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I have also written several others which are pretty rubbish, and therefore will never publish them. I firmly believe that their value lies in the learning and the practice, rather than in the reading. Failure can, after all, be a most effective instructor.
 
 
I hope you enjoy the poems this post has to offer, and find yourself more informed about the beauty and complexity of the sonnet when you leave it than when you arrived.
 
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10 Classic Examples of the Sonnet Form via Interesting Literature

 

The sonnet form is one of the oldest and most popular poetic forms in European literature, having been invented in the thirteenth century and used since by poets as varied as Petrarch, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Tony Harrison, Carol Ann Duffy, and Simon Armitage. Below, we offer […]

Source: 10 Classic Examples of the Sonnet Form – Interesting Literature

Poem: ‘Sonnet of the Moon’ by Charles Best

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A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines with  strict patterns of rhythm and rhyme that give it both formality and musicality. 

I have read and studied many sonnets, and have written two that I love and one very poor one that shall never see the light of day, let alone be published. Let’s call that third one an important exercise in keeping the poet humble! 

This sonnet by Charles Best, a contemporary of Shakespeare, is beautifully evocative, bringing to mind images of moonlight on the water and the movement of the tides before transforming, as sonnets often do, into a declaration of love and devotion. 

Sonnet of the Moon

Look how the pale queen of the silent night
Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,
And he, as long as she is in his sight,
With her full tide is ready her to honor.
But when the silver waggon of the moon
Is mounted up so high he cannot follow,
The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan,
And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow.
So you that are the sovereign of my heart
Have all my joys attending on your will;
My joys low-ebbing when you do depart,
When you return their tide my heart doth fill.
So as you come and as you do depart, 
Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.