Sonnet Examples by Students (Examples from Gideon O. Burton)

– Sonnet Examples by Students –

Sonnets are a significant poetry form, as you are undoubtedly well aware from your English education. However, it might challenge to comprehend what they’re saying!

The good news is that everybody can pick up on poetry. It just requires practice. Because of this, we’ve chosen and described the top 10 notable sonnets in history.

You may better appreciate the meaning of the sonnet by reading it together with a professional interpretation, and you can also put your own analytical abilities to the test.

a. 14 lines

b. A particular rhyme scheme

c. Iambic pentameter

Sonnet Examples by Students

Examples can help you better comprehend sonnets. And what’s this? That’s exactly what we’ll do!

The best ten sonnets of all time have been selected. We will provide you with background information on each sonnet, specify the each sonnet example, and provide a brief analysis of each poem.

Shakespearean sonnet examples make up the first five of our list, while examples of Spencerian, Modern English, Miltonic, and Italian/Petrarchan sonnets, as well as Italian/Petrarchan sonnets, make up the last five.

Also, keep in mind that literary interpretations are usually somewhat arbitrary, so feel free to supplement our readings of these top 10 sonnet examples with your own research or assessments!

Translator by Gideon O. Burton

The gold was grayed and cold; the plates were thin.
What mystery lay captive in their runes?
His fingers, asking, traced them to begin.
Would history unlock its darkness soon?
Embalmed within the metal, robed in glyphs,
The absent millions whisper from the past;
He scans the ancient scrawlings thick with mist
Until their shadows dawn in him at last:
Each thought, unwieldy first, he hefts with sweat,
As though ideas were metal: heavy, dense;
He assays words in dozens, weighed the set
As heaven trains His prophet, seer, and lens.
To craft the words, to tell each symbol’s pith,
The Seer-apprentice fashioned, Joseph, Smith.

No Still Voice and Small by Gideon O. Burton

The Spirit, so they say, comes still and small,
As though the voice of God Himself were stagnant;
Or that creation’s author scarce can call
Who sings into the winds that stroke his planet,
Who roars into the crashing waves alive,
Whose sprouting, greening plants do shake and stir,
Whose million moving species active thrive.
No quiet voice thus bids such life occur.
As Jesus summoned, “Lazarus, come forth!”
So beckons God to each our dying souls,
In resonance that echoes south to north,
In burning, hot as magma, bright as coals.
The Lord Almighty’s voice is as a storm;
His Spirit shouts, and suddenly we’re born.

Proposal by Gideon O. Burton

One word slow ripens, opens on her lips
Twice stirred by kisses, silenced, pursed,
The current aches in her, she tastes she sips,
Demure to savor silence, let him first
Unwind her gaze, distill to language white
And fine as pearls or milk one drop one word
Resigns her will and still he waits and waits
The time with heavy hope, he moves toward
The, oh, so simple syllables, he breathes
To stow the courage, births the thought in flesh
“And so–” “Don’t speak, I know,” say eyes and seethes
And flows their minute, minds, and hands to mesh
Combine, contract, renew, awake, confess:
One word she urges, sudden, quiet: yes.

Oregon Fog by Gideon O. Burton

Another thing, not smoke at all, not dry
Nor ashy, something close to water yet
Another thing, not clouds that nestle, set
In lumpy languor on the hillsides, high.
It is a brooding, patient thing, a sigh
These swaying redwoods breathe, a kind of wet
Companion, fingers dangling where they shed
A lacquer for the leaves. It doesn’t fly
Away, but lingers in the early, late,
Then dissipates in silence as the trees
Emerge, ungraying, colored, thick with juice,
The grasses, ferns grown glassy in the great
Baptizing morning rite. The paws release,
The captive ground uncaptived, fragrant, loosed.

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The Eye with all Her Searching has Not Seen by Gideon O. Burton

An imitation of 1 Corinthians 2:9-10:

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”

In holy writ, in prophets’ ink is said
The eye with all her searching has not seen
Nor has the patient ear with patience read
Nor has it entered hearts both whole and clean
Those glories, blanket blessings thick and full
That he our loving God has long prepared
Has saved and savored till at last he pulls
The heavens whole on souls whose hearts are bared
In pure and simple love for him. And yet
Our gracious master has revealed this boon
Through spirit, holy washing grace, through wet
And cleansing peace upon us, heaven’s tune.
For Spirit searches all and fathoms deep,
So well he plunges sin until we weep.

A Toast to Toast by Gideon O. Burton

Of all the snacks that beckon in the night
When tummies growl and gnawing hunger calls,
But one can satisfy my famished plight
And summons me to stumble through the halls.
Oh piece of bread, so humble in your slice
What magic turns your skin from white to brown?
What arrogant aromas do entice
When toaster pops and butter coats you down!
With cinnamon and sugar or with jam
I dress you in the ornaments of sweet
More sated, I, than proverb’s happy clam
When crispy, hot and warm my lips you meet.
Of every night-time treat you are the most
I honor you, great food, whose name is toast.

Mucus by Gideon O. Burton

Lugubrious and patient as he slimes
His dark and viscous weight within my head.
He tugs his bitter taffy mass in crimes
Of pressured pain and dripping dread.
A hundred tissues bruised with blasting blows,
And yet he lingers, stranding strands of crust;
Gelatinous stalactites, grainy flow,
Replacing brains with miles of muck and must.
In sour thickness smears my throat and lungs,
His wiggling jelly clogs each passageway–
I cough up gooey golf balls on my tongue;
In rasping pleas my alveoli pray.
My phlegmy enemy, you shall not run:
With antihistamines I end your fun.

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White Chocolate: A Vituperation by Gideon O. Burton

The following sonnet is an example of a descriptive sonnet—not it’s about a person, it’s about food. It has a certain vituperative tone that can pique curiosity.

White chocolate, oh oxymoron foul,
No cocoa bean did bless your candy vat.
We chocoholics taste you and we howl.
What are you? An albino slab of fat,
Hydrogenized and sweetend past remorse,
Then peddled with hyperbole and fraud
To unsuspecting chocophiles, of course,
Who’d rather gargle liver oil from cod.
I’ve gnawed on better plastic in my day;
More flavor can be found between one’s toes.
Perverse confection, fit to throw away,
Unworthy of my chocolate-sniffing nose.
White chocolate, a joke not semisweet,
Your coming means our end is near complete.

Nacho Hell by Gideon O. Burton

The ancient Mayas fried their mash of maize,
Creating crispy strips of crunchy corn.
Upon an altar, smoking fires ablaze,
Tomato and cilantro slush was born:
The Holy Salsa, hot to feed the gods,
Was slathered on the chips with shouts of glee;
A taster slave would have to beat the odds
As Jalapeños melt him to the knees.
A vat of rude Velveeta, spiced and warm,
Would through a trough be splashed upon the mix.
The priestesses of munching would perform,
Cavorting like a mass of colored sticks.
Today, no take-out fetched from Taco Bell
Could match the brimstone of that nacho hell.

Tabernacle of Clay by Cecily Huefner

A frantic, futile fall to bended knee?
To ask, to seek, to knock but not to find
Makes hope grow slack and wither. Prayer is free–
But answers, highly charged. A faith combined
With works should warrant working, warm reply
From God to man. But what if silence reigns?
A covenantal breach? Such will not edify.
So what of acts, if acts bring only pains?
And yet continues knee to floor, and bread
To mouth, and dust to dust–a cry, a plea
For promised answers in the heart and head:
To understand, to recognize, to see.
When tight the fingers clasped remain below,
Divinity takes root, and grows.

A Sonnet for My Husband by Alexandra Eaton

If you should see a light within my eye
So lovely, it’s like love to you doth seem,
Beware, my love, for I cannot deny
That once a month with loathing it doth gleam.
For love can change as hormones rage and turn
My tortured flesh until it seems unfair
That I with cramps and aches and bloating burns
While you, in all your comfort, just lie there.
For a man once viewed as my gallant knight
Doth change, as once a month I only see
This paltry fool at whom I scream all night
Till he doth fetch me my Motrin IB.
But do not fear, my love, and smile anon
For love returns when PMS is gone.

For Dylan, with Hope and Light by Jennifer Hays

Like morning sun that bathes the craggy slope
With golden light and kisses all the trees;
Like gentle rain that brings with it the hope
Of future growth and green to ever please
The eye, my child of copper hair broke forth.
Like magic came he bringing hope and light
Collected in the lap of God. His worth?
Eternal, priceless treasure–soul so bright.
I bore a son but now I burdens bear.
Can I this living flame keep all aglow?
With faithful tinder light his pathway where
Supernal joy and hope will ever grow?
As we were tethered wholly part to part,
Now tethered must I keep him to my heart.

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Sonnet 155 by Heather Reading

Cellulosic manufacturing waste from the textile industry and pectin, a plant-based polysaccharide isolated from skin remnants that are a byproduct of juice production, are combined to create Sonnet 155.

Like from the deep my husband wakes from sleep
His bloodshot eyes crack’d open blankly stare
So slowly from the covers doth he creep,
Creep out with eyes half shut and bed-head hair.
His breath to me doth very foully reek
And tothe bathroom slowly doth he tread,
The toothpaste his blind hand doth blindly seek
To scrape the scum from out his heavy head.
Out of the bathroom comes this dreadful sound
The creepers of the night from bladder race
Then doth a scream deep in so loud resound
As aftershave doth splash upon his face.
The act of marriage it doth quick reveal
The beauty of the morn hath great appeal.

A Cycle by April Thompson

The scattered rays are golden, warm, yet weak,
A proud attempt to stall such candid loss,
They play with shadows games of hide and seek.
The enemy advances, bears a cross,
A royal pageant, host of vibrant hues,
Of topaz, nutmeg, crimson changing fast.
And ever-fragranced breath delivers news
Of spicy, harvest magic, omen cast,
A whisper to secede rich heat and light
To frosty, bitter gales mocking cloak,
And silver, silent daggers bring dark night,
To rob earth’s life, conveying death’s strong yoke.
Yet with the passing prosper do we know,
Another birth, a bud, awaits to grow.

Sonnet to Death by Heath Bailey

Cold Death, who lays an icy hand on all
The children of the Two who fell from grace,
Boast not — thy victory’s scope is sliver-small
And but a moment mars the human race.
Although the grave, in season, houses bones,
And Age, thy minion, plays me like a pawn,
Though for a day thou rulest, ‘neath the stones,
Thy grip, though fearful, thee will fail ere dawn.
For in these realms of Love thou canst not reign:
The widow’s faith, the kinship in a home,
And lover’s vows. Thy frightenings are in vain,
For these thou hast not strength to overcome.
What then if for a moment Death bring grief?
From Death, Love plunders Life, a welcome thief.

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Sonnet Examples by Students (Examples from Gideon O. Burton)