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Imitating Shakespeare’s Sonnet 107
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Sonnet 107
__by William Shakespeare
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.
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Imitating Shakespeare: 107
__by James Sale
My love looks fresh, as every lover’s does,
For dateless ages, or at least until
The cozy comforts of settling down close
Atom-fired collisions of will to will;
Meantime, the whole world’s business stinks on:
Wars, rumors, famines, earthquakes, dope and plagues,
Some stupid voice erupts with… Negotiations.
Breakthroughs. Arms control. Hope. The latest Trade
And all the irrelevance of speechless tribes
Waving to oblivion with tactless art,
Mindless as modernism. They’ve all connived
At mediocrities and betrayed the heart.
Let them preach peace, their palates packed arsenals;
My job’s to love you, and to make it final.
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James Sale has had over 50 books published, most recently, “Mapping Motivation for Top Performing Teams” (Routledge, 2021). He has been nominated by The Hong Kong Review for the 2022 Pushcart Prize for poetry, has won first prize in The Society of Classical Poets 2017 annual competition, and performed in New York in 2019. He is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. His most recent poetry collection is “StairWell.” For more information about the author, and about his Dante project, visit https://englishcantos.home.blog. To subscribe to his brief, free and monthly poetry newsletter, contact him at [email protected]
(i) The jarred scansion in line 4 complements the line’s sense.
(ii) I particularly like how the iambic convention invites the pronunciation of the “i” in “business” in line 5.
(iii) The imperfect rhyme between “stinks on” and “negotiations” doesn’t quite work for me – something to do with the latter’s feminine ending, I think.
(iv) “Waving” in line 10 is a nice trochaic substitution.
(v) Allow me to suggest an alternative line 12 which better maintains the iambic pentameter: “as mediocrities betrayed the heart”.
(vi) I have to say that the concluding heroic couplet doesn’t quite work. Again it’s something to do with line 13’s feminine ending.
On another note, it’s only just struck me – although it’s probably been said before – that the concluding heroic couplet in Shakespeare’s sonnet is strongly reminiscent of Horaces Odes lib.3 30 line 1: “Exegi monumentum aere perennius”.
Thanks Richard, appreciate your detailed comments.
Fascinanating update in modern English of one of Shakespeare’s love poems that I have read, but into which I never delved deeply. The best lines of yours for me were:
“Waving to oblivion with tactless art,
Mindless as modernism. They’ve all connived
At mediocrities and betrayed the heart.”
I might have used “that” rather than “and” in the third line, but the meaning is the same.
Thanks Roy – glad you liked some of these lines, and the lines you pick out are so relevant to today!!!
James,
To Roy’s list of favorites I would add your opening line as one of mine,
“My love looks fresh, as every lover’s does.”
It’s not particularly romantic, but it is sort of cheeky–akin to your love for her being a “job!”
If I miss anything at all in your poem, it would be a reprise of Shakespeare’s marvelously alliterative line, “The mortal moon, hath her eclipse endured.”
Which is, in any case, a line beyond imitation.
Thanks James – to miss only that is praise indeed! Thanks.
If density of meaning is the prime attribute of art (something I was told in my Philosopy of Art class at Harvard University), then this poem is certainly a work of it. I can grasp the gist, but the many details are hard to condense into a succinct summary. Yet, here we are, doing our best to make the best of a complicated situation.
Ha ha ha!!! Very dry, CB, and thanks for making the attempt; yes, some things are complicated. But is it worth the effort? Only you can say. But I always keep in mind that wonderful title that WB Yeats used: ‘The fascination of what’s difficult’.
Shakespeare may have done something similar, as writers in his day (and much of the past) found great worth and no shame in imitating predecessors. You, James, re-invent his work in your own style. I miss his smoother meter, more precise logic, and exalted yet intimate tone. In return, you provide an interesting contemporary structure. Your early lines and final couplet form a frame with the Shakespearean theme re-stated. You re-figure eternity in a practical way. The world’s business refuses to stay in the background, but demands center stage in a broadcast voice outspeaking you. This mindless modernism is amusing in its betrayal of the heart of the poem as well as the heart of the lover. You grab the heart back with one satirical line telling off the world, and a final one firmly grasping love as assigned employment.
Thanks Margaret. Yes, this mindless modernism does its best to betray our deepest aspirations, hopes and loves: hence the forever need of vigilance! Glad you found some merit in my re-framing of the master’s work.
I think your sonnet stands wonderfully on its own without any reference to Shakespeare, though I don’t think it loses anything by acknowledging the Bard’s inspiration. You give us some wonderful turns of phrase (“atom-fired collisions of will to will,” “stinks on,” “mindless as modernism”), and make good use of the Shakespearean form’s opportunity for a double-turn.
Thanks Adam – much appreciated; and of course, you are right: poems need to stand alone without reference to others, though by referencing it in this way I am, I hope, contributing to the wider aim of the SCP to promote classical poetry; so, I have overtly done this just by way of information. Of course, the downside is that critics may easily make hay with the shortfalls of one’s efforts compared with the magisterial masters. However, as you know, we should aim high; and for myself, I am not intimidated by the past, rather feel inspired by it – as my ‘run’ on Dante illustrates. Much appreciate your kind words.
The use of jarring near-rhymes and loose scansion here reflects the theme of the “stupid” and “mindless” modern world well. It’s not an especially pretty poem, but then it isn’t supposed to be. One might interpret the out of sync feminine ending rhymes, especially in the final couplet, with the commitment to personal love over and against chaos. Well done.
Thanks ABB – yes, to get to love is a struggle and it doesn’t always rhyme well! Appreciate your comments.
Greetings, James!
Shakespeare is one of my favorites. so many others.. For me, the simpler, the poem, the better. Example, Robert Frost. I liked the last two lines… the best!
Happy 2025!
Dear Patricia – simple is good! Frost is great. Happy 2025!!!
That final line—“My job’s to love you, and to make it final”—landed hard. It feels like a man planting a flag in scorched earth. In a world addicted to distraction and betrayal, the idea that love could still be “final” is… honestly, kind of radical.
I think this updated imitation is favoloso James!