Ralph McInerny has a book of sonnets, Shakespearean Variations, in which he has taken the first line and the words of the end-rhymes of one of William Shakespeare's sonnets and built from it a new sonnet. For August, I decided that I would do a looser version of this -- sometimes from Shakespeare, sometimes from someone else, and perhaps I might also vary which line is kept rather than always doing only the first one. In any case, it should be good poetic practice.
Shakespearean Variation: Sonnet 1
From fairest creatures we desire increase;
alas, they are too apt to fade and die,
to leave a lesser world from their decrease,
save but the shadow frail of memory.
So little fair outlasts our glancing eyes!
To time's devouring fire they are but fuel,
and promise that they give seems nought but lies,
save that a liar's tongue is not so cruel.
But beauty is still more than ornament;
your eyes, though briefest flowers in the spring,
bestow on me some strange, undreamed content
that seems beyond remembrance niggarding.
-- Why speak of time? Your eyes seem but to be;
a fool alone would put a clock to thee.
