* A key to this exercise is located in the "Resources for 219" folder in Murray Hall room 104.

A.Ostriker

The Sonnet

Scan and comment briefly on these two sonnets (both concerned with order and disorder, both concerned with love), remarking on any points of prosodic interest, including variations in caesurae, end-stopped and enjambed lines, kind and degree of irregularity. Notice conspicuous examples of alliteration and assonance. What expressive effects are produced by the formal techniques you're noticing?

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd

The rich proud cost of outworn buried age,

When sometime lofty tow'rs I see down-raz'd,

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdim of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,

Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

or state itself confounded to decay,

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate

That Time may come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end,

Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy:

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.