Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Silvia? :)

Today’s second sonnet:
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CV

  Let not my love be call'd idolatry,
  Nor my beloved as an idol show,
  Since all alike my songs and praises be
  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
  Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
  Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
  Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,
  One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
  'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,
  'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;
  And in this change is my invention spent,
  Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
    Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,
    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.
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The play of cause-and-effect statements in the first two quatrains is delightful  J  The volta would be the this change in line 11, and the point of the poem is delayed until the never in the final line.  Also:  The fair, kind, and true makes me think right away of the following:
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From Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, Scene 2

Who is Silvia? what is she,
    That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
    The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
    For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
    To help him of his blindness;
And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
    That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
    Upon the dull earth dwelling;
To her let us garlands bring      

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