Sonnet CLXIII:

George Henry Boker 1823 (Philadelphia) – 1890 (Philadelphia)



'O for my sake do you with fortune chide'--
I almost took sad Shakespeare's thought for mine,
So closely fits his sonnet line by line
The wretched case in which my life was tried.
Fraud, falsehood, avarice, the beastly pride
That swells the entrails of the gorging swine,
The selfish greed that guzzles filth as wine,
The grovelling spite that vaunts what it should hide;
All these foul things have compassed me around,
And with this hell of baseness I have striven,
Till God's ten laws in solemn jest seemed given.
Then do not wonder that I kissed the ground
Beneath thy feet; my joy was so profound,
To hail a soul that was designed in heaven.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
46

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBACDDCCD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 653
Words 119
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

George Henry Boker

George Henry Boker was an American poet, playwright, and diplomat. more…

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    "Sonnet CLXIII:" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/42950/sonnet-clxiii:>.

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