Five down, five to go

Just five more finals in the next three days (I seriously need to stop knocking myself out with classes).  At least I don’t have any more 8 a.m. finals this semester!  Here’s today’s sonnet:

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XCV

  How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame

  Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,

  Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!

  O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.

  That tongue that tells the story of thy days,

  Making lascivious comments on thy sport,

  Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;

  Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.

  O! what a mansion have those vices got

  Which for their habitation chose out thee,

  Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot

  And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!

    Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;

    The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge.

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The already lush language is heightened still to the crescendo of the all things turn to fair of line 12!  And the volta follows that crescendo:  It’s the take heed at the beginning of the following line, and the turn is only completed as late as the antepenultimate word of the poem.  For multiple minor (and obvious) reasons, this sonnet reminds me of Blake  J

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The Sick Rose

By William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick.

The invisible worm

That flies in the night

In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.