22.07.2007, 18:32
The Sonnet
In this strait-waistcoat of poor fourteen lines
Our Shakespear cramped his mighty intellect.
'Tis as if Ocean should confines elect,
Like tributary streams; Golconda's mines
Contract their splendours to one gem that shines
With fraction'd lustre; or great kings reject
Th'imperious sceptre, and instead select
The pastoral crook. But genius all refines.
He in that circumscription still could move
A chartered libertine, and spirits raise,
By his "so potent art" all rules above,
In that small charmed circle; to the rays
Of his fine wit it did a focus prove --
A wheel, whose rondure close confine doth brace.
In this strait-waistcoat of poor fourteen lines
Our Shakespear cramped his mighty intellect.
'Tis as if Ocean should confines elect,
Like tributary streams; Golconda's mines
Contract their splendours to one gem that shines
With fraction'd lustre; or great kings reject
Th'imperious sceptre, and instead select
The pastoral crook. But genius all refines.
He in that circumscription still could move
A chartered libertine, and spirits raise,
By his "so potent art" all rules above,
In that small charmed circle; to the rays
Of his fine wit it did a focus prove --
A wheel, whose rondure close confine doth brace.