Sonnet - John Clare

John Clare's simply-titled 'Sonnet' of 1841 is a clear statement of his love of the English summer time. He begins with the phrase 'I love...', and this is repeated in the third line as well as the eleventh, with 'I like...' echoing in the ninth line.

Clare uses imagery to focus on the sights of nature that give him so much pleasure. In the first line, summer is personified as 'beaming forth'. In the second line he skilfully combines alliteration and metaphor in his description of 'white wool sack clouds': his comparison of clouds to wool is fitting in that it keeps the imagery within the domain of nature. Colours of flowers are emphasised in the fourth and fifth lines: 'Mare blobs stain with gold' and 'water lilies whiten'.

In line six, Clare turns to the sound of reeds that 'rustle like wind shook wood', again combining two figures of speech – this time simile and assonance. He expresses his love of watching the Moor Hen searching for her nest in the rushes as well as his admiration of the weeping willow beside the 'clear deep lake'. The long 'ee' sounds in the phrase 'clear deep' emphasis the peace and stillness of the water.

Clare watches flowers swaying and insects flying about in the hay grass in lines eleven and twelve. 'Swings', 'winds' and 'wings' within those two lines build up assonance and alliteration to create a pleasant atmosphere of gentle movement. The final two lines of the sonnet emphasise the fine summer weather and sunshine in the phrases 'bright day' and 'bright beetles'. The insects 'sport about the meadow', giving a feeling of play and enjoyment of the season and the sun. The sonnet ends with a return to the 'clear lake', echoing line ten and giving a sense of unity.

The sonnet is unusual in its lack of punctuation – there is not even a full stop at the end of the final line. The lack of commas or semi-colons allows one line to flow into the next and gives a sense of continuity. The rhyme scheme is, on the other hand, very straightforward and traditional, lending harmony to the sonnet. This is a poem to be appreciated for its simplicity, beautiful imagery and expression of love of nature.

I love to see the summer beaming forth

And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north

I love to see the wild flowers come again

And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain

And water lilies whiten on the floods

Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood

Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes

And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes

I like the willow leaning half way o'er

The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore

I love the hay grass when the flower head swings

To summer winds and insects happy wings

That sport about the meadow the bright day

And see bright beetles in the clear lake play

John Clare

1841

Shakespeare - Sonnet 130

The opening line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 is a surprising simile: 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun'. We might normally expect poets, especially those of Shakespeare's time, to praise the women they love by telling us that their eyes do shine like the sun. But a writer of Shakespeare's calibre is not going to follow the herd and make exaggerated comparisons; here he is describing reality.

Over the next few lines Shakespeare continues to describe his mistress in terms of the senses of sight, smell, sound and touch, but there is no flattery here. Colours are focused on first: 'Coral is far more red than her lips' red' tells us that lips are not naturally a bright red colour. Pale skin would have been sought after, but Shakespeare's mistress had dun-coloured breasts, dun being quite a dark colour. It seems that she did not have soft, sleek hair, as in line four it is compared to wire. Shakespeare relates that he has seen beautiful two-toned or 'damasked' roses, but that there is no rosiness in his mistress' cheeks.

The poet is quite forthright in telling us that his mistress has bad breath; in fact it 'reeks', and there is no hint of perfume. Line nine gives the first compliment: 'I love to hear her speak', but Shakespeare admits in the following line that he would actually prefer music to her voice. In line eleven Shakespeare implies that the way his mistress moves could not be compared to a goddess, and he goes on to say 'My mistress when she walks treads upon the ground', creating the impression that she is heavy-footed.

Sonnet 130 follows that usual structure of the Shakespearean sonnet, with the last two lines being a rhyming couplet, indented. This change marks a change in content too: Shakespeare says that in spite of all the defects, he genuinely loves his mistress: 'I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare.' Appearances are not what matter where true love is concerned.

The poem is written in iambic pentameter, or lines of ten syllables with the stress on every second syllable. ('Coral' in line two does not quite fit into this pattern.) The rhyme scheme is ababcdcdefefgg, the usual pattern for a Shakespearean sonnet. The structure, then, conforms, but it is the content of the sonnet that is unusual. It is refreshing to read a love poem that is frank and honest rather than following meaningless traditions.