Each sonnet here starts with a line from one of Shakespeare's sonnets. This may very well be my life's work.
Sub-Galleries 12
Literature
Kindle Sonnets: Prologue
Inspire me, my muse, to write in lines
That stand alone, and yet together mold:
The power of the sonnet's fine designs
Shall bring a story told and yet untold.
The love that lived five hundred years ago
And dwelt in words writ by a certain Bard
Is but the seed from which new words shall grow.
(Lines bolded as to show my true regard)
But as he waited eighteen times to show
His true affection, likewise do I wait
The full eighteen, then let it overflow
To close what I have chosen to relate,
A story generations all enjoy:
This is the Bildungsroman of a boy.
Kindle Sonnets
18
Literature
Summer's Day
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
The days when my soul felt at ease to leave
My home, and find rest on the outside way
That runs a hundred--nay, thousand!--mile weave.
And yet, I lived in utter ignorance
Of what it meant to live each day and yearn,
Or think in any time but present tense,
I found much more that I had yet to learn.
I raised my eyes, and gazed on straight ahead
Where only a light as soft as you shone,
Ne'er turning back to look at what was dead
Or down below to see how high we'd flown.
For now, our wind-blown journey's just begun
As we ascend up to the summer sun.
Summer Tetralogy
4
Literature
Faith From Discipline
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I found myself, I turned to none but you
For comfort shod not with a glazed disguise
Of hopes filled full with sentiments untrue.
Sometimes my actions disappointed you,
But your petitions carried to my heart.
For self-advancement asks that friends be true;
From broken ego does a man's growth start.
Too true this was, I found this awful fact
That grace drips painful from the will of God:
As He may add, the same He would subtract
With love invisible that moves the rod.
The prayer then is to be rich in hope
And live in light, inspired by faithful scope.
Faith Tetralogy
4
Literature
Sacrifice from Deep Love
That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong
And throw all that I own upon your cause.
For your sake, in my hardships I’ll be strong,
And dive in deepest darkness without pause.
‘Tis not that I have vast riches to give,
Nor do I possess a courage beyond breaking,
I only have this precious life to live,
And that is all that’s needed for the taking.
For I have oft arrived at my wit’s end,
And forward stepped, afraid to sink and drown,
To find that underneath I could depend
That full surrender never lets me down.
To go your path, not mine: This makes me strong;
Such is my love, to thee I do belong.
Tetralogy of Deep Love
4
Literature
Sonnet XIX
Op. 21, no. 1
Heartbeat
To the wide world and all her fading sweets
A vow of heart to heart lasts but a day.
The measure found in palpitating beats
Can turn from ruddy life to deathly gray
Upon the slightest errant, trembling twitch
And silence any heart, despite the size.
For smoke and tar have stained it black as pitch,
Indulgence of the flesh brought self-demise.
But my heart, weathered, beaten as it is,
Still carries on upon the happy thought
Of synchrony that never falls remiss,
From years of harmonizing well begot.
Let all the passion in my lifeblood flow!
My pulse shall neither be too fast nor slow.
Like Only a Few Days
14
Literature
Sonnet XXXIII
Op. 22, no. 1
To Aaron
You make me travel forth without my cloak,
Deny my comfort and my privacy.
In late night hours my name you free invoke
To take part in your latest fantasy.
You make me as your go-to fool to call,
Your only soldier in your one-man draft,
The whim that follows whimsy great or small,
No matter if I think it strange or daft.
But no objection do I hold at heart,
No reluctance in my following feet:
Far be it that I grudgingly depart,
Or on my own accord sound my retreat.
In senescence or in our youthful prime,
A true friend loves no matter what the time.
Aaron's Beard
9
Literature
FSC XIV: Sonnet XLIII
Op. 24, no. 1
Return
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Worked deep into the night without respite,
'Twas nights as those when on my bed I laid
And thought of thee, who didst once walk in light.
Did distance misdirect thy wand'ring heart,
Or pent-up doubt thy piety destroy?
To think the end is come before the start,
It wounds my soul to see the devil's ploy.
But though the nighttime feels like life is long,
I hold my hope in blessèd rays of day
That pierce the darkness, though it may seem strong,
And light for wayward souls the homebound way.
Turn back to hope that does not disappoint,
And heal the hearts thy fall pulled out
Beauty Beyond the Broken
11
Literature
Sonnet LIV
Op. 25, no. 1
The Aroma of Christ
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made.
I sing of lives lived not for their own sakes,
But lived like off'rings on the altar laid,
Forgetting our past sorrows and mistakes.
In days before we were like sheep astray
Who searched for greener grass, ourselves to claim,
Each making for ourselves a self-trod way,
Not knowing that our struggles were the same.
But He, in gathering us with his call,
He leads us to the shearing and the slaughter.
No matter what the blemish or the fall,
With blood and flame we rise now sons and daughters.
That precious smoke the angels did ascend
Has called us nigh to make us de
One Body
7
Literature
Sonnet LXI
Op. 26, no. 1
Keeping Watch
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Alert to all the shadows in the dark,
The principalities that cruelly take
And plunder everything with beauty's mark.
To play the watchman ever for thy sake,
My love, who fills my soul and all my being,
I watch and gladly wait, though still opaque
The future is, resistant to my seeing.
But when the dawn at last will show its face,
Would all our hopes then happily conclude
That all we feared could not have stood in place
Before the force that leaves all things subdued.
That force is love that cultivated grows,
Which gives and gives until it overflows.
Inner Man
12
Literature
Sonnet LXXIII
Op. 28, no. 1
Autumn Days
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang,
And brilliant shines the full moon in its phase,
When waning day holds on to summer's pangs,
And night foretells of winter's icy grays,
I think of you. Another year has passed,
It means, and still alone we watch the seasons
Wander all too slow but still too fast,
Refusing to surrender to our reasons.
O, south wind, tell me as you pass me by
How long our messenger you must remain!
Shall it be soon, and will my eyes keep dry
When all our starlit paths are laid out plain?
'Til then, the summer's heat must smolder still
As all our wanderings wait to take their fill.
Evergreen
9
Literature
Sonnet LXXXII
Op. 29, no. 1
Word Limit
What strained touches rhetoric can lend
Are wholly insufficient to describe
The wandering of the years, each bump and bend
Sustained along this path I've walked, the vibe
Of mingled joy and griefs. Those words I lack,
I have not time nor talent nor the skill
To grant just treatment or keep proper track
Of all I gained, and have to increase still.
But all the same, it never gave me pause
Before, the feeling's hardly alien.
With forward movement past the path that was
And towards the future I walk daily in,
I look to loves both old and newly gained
And let their voices lead, however strained.
West to East
6
Literature
Sonnet LXXXIX
Opus 32, no. 1 The Way of Shame As I'll myself disgrace, knowing your will, Since all who follow you must bear their cross, I only ask that you would be my fill Of love amidst dehumanizing loss. Let your belovedness pervade my soul That I may be reminded I am man And not a worm, a head and not a sole, A filled-up vessel, not a crumpled can. For living poor in spirit is a choice, And not a miserable coincidence— The ceding of my privilege I rejoice To live beyond the lines of my defense. I lose my face, yet find in my rejection An ever-clearer sense of my reflection.
Some Glory
3
Index by Parsat, literature
Literature
Index
This is an index of the different collections that comprise The Cycle, a series of sonnets I have written that start with a line from one of Shakespeare's sonnets. Most of these are collections of sonnets, but a few particularly beautiful and impactful sonnets became tetralogies, in which I used four lines from the sonnet to make four different sonnets in a "miniseries" of sorts. These are laid out in order. Kindle Sonnets (Op. 20): Covers sonnets 1-17. These all have the distinction of being written as notes in my first edition Kindle, which I got when I entered college. This series also starts with an original prologue, which I suppose could double as a prologue for The Cycle as a whole. Summer Tetralogy (Op. 15): Four sonnets based on sonnet 18, the famous "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" A deep dive into romance. Like Only a Few Days (Op. 21): Covers sonnets 19-33, but skipping 29. This set of 14 sonnets is dedicated to my future wife, with the number 14 inspired by the