Page:Hand in hand; (IA handinhand00kipl).pdf/73



SONNET may prove difficult to write, Always supposing that you keep the rules: These be a decalogue, and many fools The world terms "sonneteers" disdain them quite, Scorn to chime octave or scan sestet right. Poor unskilled workmen, gibing at their tools! Their rhyme sounds ring, like those bedizened mules Whose bells send jangling cadence down the height.

A sonnet should have one idea, complete And perfect, penned in fourteen noble lines: Pacing with music on ten stately feet: And when the octave worthily enshrines Jewels of phrase, and sestet brightly shines With golden words, the sonnet stands concrete.