Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

Words Of The Nightingale (Elizabethan Sonnet)

Alike the nightingale my words would rhyme,
beguile the heart, induce and charm the ear.
Enchanting rhymes, a nightingale would chime,
shall you to them, one day, those words endear?

Alike the nightingale my words upsoar;
inspire poets, stir, evoke the feels.
My words alike the nightingale abhor
the foul play that man for long now reels.

Yet like a night in gale my words are raped.
Unlike the mighty swords, they oddly rust.
Enchained in ignorance they now are scraped,
the pages calm, the words have lost their gust.

The mighty words, once cut alike the swords,
become the nightingale's but broken cords.

Style / type: 
Structured: Western
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Review Request (Direction): 
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Editing stage: 

Comments

does this type of sonnet needs perfect rhyme too? I thought you need the same syllable count for that. If so, then "ear" and "endear" in the 1st stanza won't be right.

Alid

Listen carefully.
Each rhyming sound has a preceding sound. It need not be part of one of the words. In this case "ear" is preceded by "the" and "dear" by "en". Words need not be of the same syllable count within the word itself. The word preceding gives the metrical stress or unstress. The only thing we are concerned with is that the like vowel sounds in our rhyme are preceded by unlike consonant sounds. Note I said "sound". Spelling is irrelevant. Only sound counts.
Does this make sense?

W. H. Snow

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Learn how, teach others.
The NeoPoet Mentor Program
http://www.neopoet.com/mentor/about

so I expect from you a perfect Elizabethan sonnet :)

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

author comment

Oh no you don't. NOT in my current state. I'm just quoting our judy. You can expect it from HER, I'm still very much a novice.

Alid

the FOUL | PLAY that | MAN for | LONG now | REELS

raped / encaged does not rhyme
Ear / endear are not perfect rhyme

A beautiful sonnet
I love the opening two verses
And a great finishing couplet

Love judy
xxx

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

the FO | ul PLAY | that MAN | for LONG | now REELS

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

author comment

is only one syllable rula

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

author comment

As far as I can see, it doesn't say it is two syllables

In general speech one never says FO-ul
.

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

foul

adjective \ˈfau̇(-ə)l\

: very unpleasant to taste or smell

: morally bad : very evil

: very bad or unpleasant

I think it is not so clear for the native speaker :)

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

author comment

but I think it, as with the 'beaut' in your 'As May Passed By', will be read by most as one syllable, thus sounding out in rhythm

Love judy
xxx

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

in on syllable, but I know that at least some British dialects say "fo-ul".

W. H. Snow

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Learn how, teach others.
The NeoPoet Mentor Program
http://www.neopoet.com/mentor/about

differently. I think it depends on the publisher's nationality.

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

author comment

But doesn't seem to do it justice
Can i suggest
Enchained in ignorance they're badly shaped .?.?

Just a thought :)
love judy
xxx

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

you mean doesn't fit for the verse's meaning ? I know it means something like "scratched"

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

author comment
(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.