Milton!

thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

A
B
B
A
A
B
B
A
C
D
D
E
C
E

This is an Italian
sonnet. The pattern
on the left shows the
way the poem
rhymes. The poem
shown is London,
1812 by William
Wordsworth.

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could
remove,
Is now the two hours' trac of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F

This is an English
sonnet. The pattern
on the left shows how
the poem rhymes.
The poem shown is
from the prologue of
Romeo and Juliet.

E
F
G
G