The Sonnet Challenge

[Swatopluk]

As announced in the Haiku thread, here is a new lyrics challenge.
The task is to write a sonnet (choose one of the classic forms) using four words given by the previous player (mark those words in the text).
Two extra rules:
1.The words should be distributed to the four parts of the sonnet, i.e. to the two quartets and two terzetts (continental) or the three quartetts and the epigramm conclusion (English) with one word in each.
2.(At least) one of the words has to be used in the rhyme.
Don't be unfair in your choice of challenge words by using only unrhymables or words that don't fit the verse structure

I (randomly, I swear) chose the words purple, sunshine, drown, and tough in the proposal in the Haiku thread and here is the sonnet I made from that:

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The purple fingered Eos guides the light
From Phoebus' palace by the distant sea
To where the sun god's horses will run free
And only one can hold the bridles tight

When he rides out adorned with helmet bright
Nyx will with covered face from heaven flee
For into Helios' face the hag daren't see
To sunshine's power cedes the pallid night

But on one fateful day 'twas her's to laugh
When someone else the chariot tried to drive
And found halfway the task for him too tough

His hybris cost young Phaёton his life
And struck by Zeus he fell down from above
Sun's fire drowned, the world of light deprived
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New words: sting, well, fortune, listen

[Sibling DavidH]

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my sting well bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That fortune, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they listen best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

Easy!  

Next set of words:  Albumen, gaga, pubic, throstle.   

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

  Questions:   

Is the pace, the number of 'stops' in any given sentence fixed?  I.e.  in the first example, "The purple fingered Eos guides the light" there are 5 'stops' or emphasis points as I read this aloud. (.. and is not all poetry meant to be read aloud?).   I see the same pattern in the second example, "When I consider how my light is spent"-- 5 'stops'.  Is that a rule?

Next, I understand the couplet structure of the first parts:  last word of first sentence rhymes with last word of last sentence, with the intervening two rhyming with each other.  

Then, apparently, you repeat the whole rhyming structure in the second group, rhyming the same way (or close to that).

But, when comparing the final six lines, with two groups of three each, I am baffled as to any pattern, given a sample of two poems-- to my untrained eye, the rhyming pattern (if there be such) is purely at the whim of the author?

In Swato's example, it appears that these two groups of three do not particularly rhyme with anything that's gone before, but alternate with each other in a pattern of the first and last (of the first three) rhymes with the middle (of the second three), and (loosely) vice-versa.

But in DavidH's example, the last word of the first group of three rhymes with the last word of the second group of three, again, none having anything (much) to do with the first set of four-and-four.

Is the rhyming pattern of the last set more or less random?  And is the pattern of 'stops' does not appear to match the five of the first set, either.

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Okay, call me dry, but looking for patterns in things is what I do... too many years of programming.  And what is programming, but taking the real world, discerning a pattern that can be reduced to code, and implementing that on a computer?

[Sibling DavidH]

Bob, that's a good analysis for one who is unfamiliar with this stuff.

A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines, each usually of five beats (pentameters).  Usually the 14 lines are divided into two parts of 8 and 6, the octave/octet and the sextet.

We can analyse rhyming patterns like this:  Swato's first and fourth lines rhyme, so do 2 and 3.  We call this abba.  The next four repeat that, so the octet rhymes abbaabba.
My poem is by John Milton (sabotaged by me) and the octet goes the same, but some go e.g. ababcdcd.  Swato's sextet goes cdcefe, whereas Milton's goes cdecde.  There are all sorts of variations.

Swato's is a darn good sonnet, and his being a non-native speaker doubles my respect.  Milton's is utterly brilliant, even though he was a *!##* puritan and on the wrong side in the civil war.  The difference - and I know Swato will agree - is that Swato is playing a game and Milton is telling us how he as a Christian comes to terms with going blind.  Look also at the technique, e.g. the way he runs phrases smoothly across the break between two lines.  Mind you, I'm not saying Swato's doesn't have a coherent theme.

The best I can do is pontificate on the academic side of it and have a bit of a joke.  I couldn't match Swato at this game.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Thanks, David!

I will let this stew in my hindbrain for a bit, then maybe have a go myself.

[Griffin NoName]

We call this abba.  The next four repeat that, so the octet rhymes abbaabba.

Abba are certainly a good group! Watched an interesting docu. on them last week. If poetry can back them up, I'm all for it.

[pieces o nine]

This game looks like fun, but I will need a couple-three days to perpetrate a proper entry...

[Swatopluk]

I'll take my own challenge, again going for abba abba cdc dcd

The princess stood beside the palace well
And cried, for she had lost her golden ball
But no one seemed to heed her desp'rate call
That into dark deep water her toy fell

'Now listen', said a voice, 'what I thee tell!'
Who spoke these words? A frog sat on the wall.
'I will return it to your father's hall
But you shall pay me ere the midnight bell*

No golden fortune I demand, my dear
I make an offer you will not regret
So cease to cry** and wipe away your tear

I wish from your own platter to be fed
So far of you be any sting of fear***
Then take me as your husband to your bed!'

*alt: pay before the
**alt:dry your eyes
***yeah, lull her, then spring the trap

Who will finish the Frog Prince fairy tale by sonnet?

Words: iron, sheet(s), debase, arise

[Swatopluk]

Unrelated to the challenge (but it's no song, so it does not strictly belong in the Choral Squid section):

The Shoggoth

I am a ball of protoplasmic slime
With pseudopods, a vision to go mad
Repulsive, foul, I fill the heart/soul with dread
The mongrel cults adore me as divine

You may control me with the Elder Sign
But drop it once, I'll tear you to a shred
Of those who meet me most will end up dead
So take precautions ere/when you near my shrine

Once just a slave created as a tool
For Elder Things to toil both night and day
Controlled by them, their minds aloof and cool/cruel

But sentience grew and I did disobey
Rebelled at last against my masters' rule
And monster's maker then became its prey

[Sibling DavidH]

That is remarkable.   

[Swatopluk]

That was a hard one since for whatever reason I came up with one Alexandrine after the other when I needed 10 not 12 syllables.
Still thinking about continuing the Frog Prince with NSFW implications: What strange frog-human hybrid will I breed?

[Sibling DavidH]

When I sabotaged the Milton sonnet I foolishly proposed four very silly words: Albumen, gaga, pubic  and throstle.
Well, I made that bed and I suppose for honour's sake I'll have to lie in it, although those words do cramp one's style a bit.

Upon dropping a broken egg down my trousers.

Albumen is the white stuff in an egg,
It's gloopy and it sticks to everything.
It's yukky when you drop it on your leg,
It slithers down like bits of slimy string.
Then everybody seems to stop and stare
At you, as if the blemish were obscene:
"Can it be Lady Gaga's pubic hair?"
They ask, their silly faces turning green.

'Throstle' is just an older name for 'thrush'.
They love a bit of uncooked albumen
And when they see some, hordes of them will rush
To peck it off you, little caring how
They snip off other tender bits as well.
I'm singing treble in the choir now.

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That was a hard one since for whatever reason I came up with one Alexandrine after the other when I needed 10 not 12 syllables.

Start a Cornelian tragedy competition?  

[pieces o nine]

Nicely done, Swato and DavidH.    

[Sibling DavidH]

Thank you, Pieces.  I wouldn't exactly say mine is nice  , but it's a technically correct sonnet and it includes those four words I so frivolously proposed.

I bet you could do a good one.

[Swatopluk]

Still thinking on Frog Prince part 2. Looks like I will have to violate the rule that the 4 words should be split among the four units.