This sonnet I wrote six years ago is an extended antonym of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet18,” written four hundred and ten years ago. I didn’t have many readers way back then at the beginning of my blog, so thought I’d repeat it here for the Sonnet challenge, along with Will’s original. Sorry, Will!!! And sorry. Although I often use enjambment in my poetry, I fear there is none here.
Time Temporal
by Judy Dykstra-Brown
Shall I contrast thee to a winter’s night?
Thou art less lovely and more tempestuous.
The lack of wind doth still November’s empty stalks,
Oe’r which the winter hath too long a power.
Sometimes the too-cold moon hides ‘neath the clouds.
Then rarely doth it’s pitted face shine forth;
And dark from dark can sometimes rise,
Spurred on by fate or providence’s static plan.
But thy short winter shall soon pass away,
Restore to thee the homeliness of death.
Nor shall that birth that brought you forth to light
Still claim thee when temporal time shall stop thy growth.
As men lose breath and eyes lose sight,
So dies this poem, and draws thee with it to thy grave.
Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
For dverse poets.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Very clever and beautifully done, but depressive…
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Ah. Sorry….
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It’s fine; i guess it’s my professional sensitivity to anything negative, even as a spoof.
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I did not mean to criticize, Judy – G-d forbid!
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No, I didn’t take it as criticism at all..Never worry about that..
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Friends again!
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Friends always..
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😻
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I love how you used Will’s famous poem, and placing it at the winter instead… really a wonderful idea of working with the old masters.
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Thanks, Bjorn.
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A wonderful conversion of the sonnet! Enjambment — hmmm!
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A response to the light-heartedness of the one by Shakespeare. Loved it!
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Nice twist on Shakespeare’s sonnet. I like the phrase “homeliness of death”.
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Thanks, Frank.
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Aa nice riposte to Will, and lots of fun. I think it would have Been even more telling had you tightened your rhyming and particularly the metre to match his better. You so nearly reflect his, but the extra words or syllables in some lines weaken the parody.
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