English Sonnets

For our Shakespeare class this fall, I assigned my students to write sonnets. They needed to be English or Shakespearean sonnets, which basically means the following rules had to be met:

1. The poem would consist of 14 lines.
2. Each line would have 10 syllables, consisting of five repetitions of the stress pattern "da DUM." Another word for this is iambic pentameter, the iamb being a poetic foot that has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, pentameter meaning that each line contains five iambs, resulting in 10 syllables.
3. The sonnet would have three quatrains (four lines) and a couplet (two lines).
4. The rhyme scheme would be a-b-a-b c-d-c-d e-f-e-f g-g.

I completed the assignment as well and found it to be a challenge. Here it is:

My child that now in arms I do enfold,
With wavering steps and laughing eyes you flee,
For steadily you learn and grow more bold,
No more content to stay, be still, with me.
Like jam that glows of jewels in a jar,
The treasured fruit of harvest well-preserved,
I long to keep you always as you are,
My ruby, sapphire, child with love I serve.
The spring of childhood, buds upon a limb,
A promise of more harvests yet to reap,
Will not remain so tiny on the brim
Of growth, but is a fruit I cannot keep.
Yet in my mind I will retain the child,
The gleaming jam of youth from fruit once wild.

My niece wrote the following sonnet:

I hear the anger in my mother's voice.
There's piles of books of work I have not done.
My sisters fuss and make a lot of noise.
The day should not be gloomy, but be fun.
When e'er a day like this is come to pass,
I want to run away and just be free
And have some time to lay upon the grass.
I'll go some place that is only for me.
Beyond the meadow high upon a hill,
A cottage sits and waits only for me.
Upon my horse I ride, oh what a thrill,
What beauty lies within the flow'rs and trees.
Parting my fantasy is such sweet sorrow,
At least I get to come back here tomorrow.