beyond the stage of rare experiments. Fourteen line poems such as Shelley's Ozymandias may not strictly be called sonnets.

The three sonnets quoted so far have other characteristics in common besides a similarity of rime scheme. A good sonnet should have its thought structure expressed in periodic form; the last line should be a climax. Very often it is composed first. There should be some sort of break in the flow of thought at the beginning of the sestet, and a slighter one at the fifth line of the octave. The theme of the perfect sonnet rises and develops in the octave and falls to a close in the sestet. As the rime scheme is a little difficult to follow, the lines should not run over very much. The iambic rhythm need not be varied greatly; unusual rhythmic changes distract the attention from the structure of the whole.

Wordsworth, whom we have seen made some change in the strict form, liked the effect of tying the octave and sestet together by having the break in thought occur in the middle of the ninth line, instead of at the end of the eighth, as it does in the sonnets already quoted. An example of Wordsworth's use in this respect, is the famous sonnet on the sonnet:

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove cells:
In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find my solace there as I have found.

Milton, in his sonnet On His Blindness, has gained an unusual effect by phrasing in such a way that the rime structure is obscured. The break in the thought occurs in the middle of the eighth line.

When I consider how my life is spent 4

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker and present
My true account, lest he returning chide; 4
"Doth God exact day-labor light denied?" ✔
I fondly ask. 'But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state e
Is kingly: Thousands at his bidding speed, c
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; d

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

The writer of sonnets should remember that all these variations from the norm given at the beginning of the chapter are for the purpose of aesthetic effects, and are deliberately introduced by the poets. They are not cases of poets modifying a form they could not handle successfully. The student who essays a sonnet should not feel that he is at liberty to depart from the standard because he finds rimes elusive. He had better try something easier than writing sonnets. "No Procrustes has obliged you to be lopped to the measure of this bed: Parnassus will not be in ruins if you should not publish a sonnet."

The Italian sonnet was introduced into England by Sir Thomas Wyatt. The Earl of Surrey, whose name is always associated with his, devised the modification which became enormously popular with the Elizabethans. The best sonnet sequences (collections of sonnets on related themes) of this type are those of Shakespeare, Sidney, Constable and

Daniel. The form is still much used, but is not so popular with modern poets as the Italian.

The Elizabethan sonnet consists of three iambic pentameter quatrains terminating in a heroic couplet, e. g.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;
Then can I drown an eye unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before:
-But if the while I think on thee, dear Friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

Xxx.

(Shakespeare: Sonnet XXX.)

In this type of sonnet, the quatrains should each express a parallel phase of thought, leading to a strongly expressed conclusion in the couplet. The special emphasis of a couplet coming after the ear is accustomed to the alteration of quatrains, gives an opportunity for a very marked climax. This is the great advantage of the Elizabethan type.

The only recognized variations of this type are Sidney's riming the second quatrain on the same sounds as the first (abab, abab, cdcd, ee) and Spenser's linking the three quatrains together thus: abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee, for example:

What guile is this, that those her golden tresses
She doth attire under a net of gold,
And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses
That which is gold or hair may scarce be told?
Is it that men's frail eyes, which gaze too bold,
She may entangle in that golden snare,
And, being caught, may craftily enfold
Their weaker hearts, which are not well aware?

Take heed, therefore, mine eyes, how ye do stare
Henceforth too rashly on that gilded net,

La which if ever ye entrapped are,

Out of her bands ye by no means shall get.
Fondness it were for any, being free,

To covet fetters, though they golden be.

(Spenser: Amoretti, XXXVII.)

These two variations have rarely been tried by modern poets. Keats in his second sonnet on Fame ("How Fevered is the Man who cannot look") has attempted a combination of the Elizabethan with the Italian form, by adding to two quatrains one of the Italian sestets. His rime scheme is abab, cdcd, efeggf. Many ears would be annoyed by the interruption of eleven lines of alternate rimes by the unexpected sound g, introduced before satisfying f. But perhaps the fact that this seems to be a unique experiment is the best argument against imitating it.

When one compares the relative advantages of the two forms of sonnet, the easier rime scheme of the Elizabethan at once suggests itself. To this may be added the emphasis, already mentioned, of the couplet coming after quatrains. On the other hand, the poet more rarely finds an idea that is perfectly fitted to the Elizabethan form; the necessity of a parallel structure in the three quatrains may lead him to pad the thought.

In general, the sonnet is the medium for reflective and interpretative poetry, rather than for simple descriptive themes. It is best for the personally intimate and subtle thought of a moment, a theme that needs no long development. This may take the form of an elaborate metaphor, or it may be a general truth of life drawn from some moment in individual experience. The best appreciation of the sonnet as a vehicle of poetic thought is Rossetti's own:3

'William Sharp's Sonnets of this Century is a very well selected collection, and his introductory essay on the sonnet will be found most interesting and very useful to the student of this form.

A sonnet is a moment's monument,—
Memorial from the Soul's eternity

To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,

Of its own arduous fullness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

A sonnet is a coin: its face reveals

The Soul,-its converse, to what Power 'tis due:-
Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,

It serve; or 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.

(The Sonnet.)