Sonnet: Drunk With Love

[thegitksan]

Good afternoon all. My first post here, and my first sonnet. It's a Spenserian format - I consciously copied the feel and structure of an existing poem to arrive at this result. It has a somewhat archaic feel to it, which I was aiming for.

This was written for a lady I was sweet on, but who did not return the feeling with the same fervour I felt.

I welcome suggestions for improvement.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Though drunken I, for she of sober taste,
Desire in vain that she might share my bed,
Unmoved is she to drink of Love in haste:
More temp’rate she, than my besotted head.

How is it so, the sober life she’s led
Wins not from me avoidance of my vice?
On honey-dewed desire have I fed,
And to my bed I’ll yet my Love entice.

How strange to drink the milk of Paradise,
And know my lover’s head will never swoon,
While gladly I will pay the drunkard’s price,
Desiring still to bed her well, and soon.

Desire, of old, will choose who it may rule
And so I wait ... my Lady’s drunken Fool.

[thegitksan]

A hopeful old man with a poem
Did post on the Literature Forum
I've bees in my bonnet
For luverly sonnets
At this site I'll continue to throw'em!

~~~~~~~~

Did I scare you guys away?

[blp]

Ha ha. Always good to bump yourself if you're being ignored, especially with nice bit of doggerel like that.

I don't have any suggestions for improvement – I think if someone told me it was genuinely about 300 years old, I'd believe them – but I do think it improves as it goes on, so maybe the first and second strophes could be improved, just not sure how.

[thegitksan]

Thanks for the encouragement. Didja catch the reference to Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"?

[Il Penseroso]

I also don't have much to offer for criticism. I don't really see the first strophe as being weaker than the others, perhaps it just takes the reader some time to warm up to the archaic language.

If anything, the weakest part seems to me to be the final couplet, though I realize it fits the format. I just like pizazz in my couplets!

Now, though, I'm curious how a sonnet from you with more of a modern feel would read.

[thegitksan]

I've a few more posted here - my latest is called "Dead Writers".

[thegitksan]

Thanks! Writing in an archaic style was a challenge, particularly as I was taught to write in the modern style - "keep it clean, tight, vigourous" was my English prof's tenet.

I've other sonnets posted here, most in the Personal Poetry wing of this establishment, but one also in the Poetry Contest: Subject Poem thread.

Thanks for stopping by. I thought I'd scared everyone off.

[blp]

Thanks for stopping by. I thought I'd scared everyone off.

Sometimes it just takes a while to get attention.

I didn't get the Kubla Khan ref, but I don't know that poem well. Let's see....

http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleri...ubla_Khan.html

OK, got it!

[Pendragon]

Delightful Doggerel! Encore! Encore!