Variations On A Theme Of Sonnet Xviii Grouped Together Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

EXEMPLARY
ACROSTIC for MAUDE C after WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SONNET XVIII
Shall I compare her? In what galaxy,
And when or where?  No mirror could reflect
Nature's epitome so talent decked,
Gainsaying self, Time holds all time in fee!
Telescopes in vain seek other sun
One half as bright,  whose universal joy,
Might Big Bang justify, all it begun.
All would exchange their place for her employ.
Myths don truth's dress, coeval, - past, to be,
Aeons root, shoot, fruit, tree, end and start,
Under, above, in, out, earth, sky and sea,
Do merge, name frame as "all in one" apart.
Exemplary, all praise she'll gain through giving,
Cycles may spin, yet one, though lost stays living.

17 June 2008  


ACROSTIC SANDRINE VAILLANT after WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SONNET XVIII
Shall I compare her to a summer's day?
A thousand times more sweet she seems to me!
Nor can Time 's winds - (which darling buds of May
Do shake)  - unsettle love's perennity.
Restrained the eye of heaven sometimes seems,
It often sends a drought, or shines too hot,
No permanence is possible, like dreams
Each season soon declines, returneth not!
Vain are Time's wings when with eternal signs
A poet frames her praises in fair verse,
Imprinting, for the Future, lyric lines,
Lending life when all else finds a hearse.
Life glories her as long as Man draws breath,
ANThem to her spurns shadow-land of Death!



28 October 1992



SONNET XVIII - Shall I Compare Thee to a Game of Chess?

Shall I compare thee to a game of chess?
Thou art not square, nor see in black and white!
Rough moves make others, summer's sun doth bless
Thy smile, night turns to day, and pawn to knight.
Sometimes too fast Life's clock to sudden death
Advances yet thy beauty knows no check,
While Polgar's pride resigns, thy modest breath
No castles in the air would build, then wreck.
Love's referee wears well a cap that fits!
No gambits blunt thy spontaneity,
No Kasparov in pupil's eye could spit,
No Fis[c]her Queen could Queen exchange with me!
Let us no bishop mate above the board,
We'll stand Time's test, King, Queen, though never bored!

28 October 1992


ACROSTIC SANDRINE VAILLANT II  after WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SONNET XVIII

Shall I compare thee?  In what galaxy,
Alas! when, where, which mirror could reflect
Nature's beauty with such wisdom decked? -
Despising self, Time rhymes in time with thee!
Rash proves comparison where thou, bright sun
Incarnate are, bring universal joy,
Now Big Bang starts again - all else sulk glum.
Exchange with you all would - no idle ploy;
Valiant the name that frames fame's « all in one »
As end, beginning are you, root, fruit, tree,
Inside and out, earth, sea, sky; butter, bun,
Life with all life coeval, past, to be!
Let soon thy progeny succeed to seed fresh part,
Arrangements Necessary Take to heart!  


28 October 1992 revised 26 June 2021

SONNET XVIII TO THERESA MAY
Shall I compare thee to Churchill's heyday?
thou art outsmartèd cherry picking fate:
rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
election's lease hath all too short a date.
Oftimes hot, cold, dumb Brexit bathos blows,
too often is its sloppy thinking bared,
maybe its meaning civil discord sows,
bucks Britain's lofty course. May's running scared.
Eternal economic winter trade
may cripple, triple deficits for years
until death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
once voters wait in patient lines time shears.
So long United Europe's flag's payee
So long United Kingdom flags, falls f[r}ee



17 February 2018