A Sonnet for Serenity

[mneme]

A Sonnet for Serenity

First quatrain and last couplet by Joshua Kronengold, second quatrain and following couplet by batyatoon, first couplet (5-6) and editing by thnidu.

Deny me answer to my heart's behest,
Deprive me of my property and lot,
Remove my person, force me by duress,
To where the land shan't bear me, I care not.
For I am unencumbered by oppression,
Nor canst thou wrest the sky from my possession.

Though I be exiled to the endless dark,
And though they tell the world I'll not return;
Though thou may'st fan the flame or set the spark
That seas may boil and that the land may burn;
My will's my own, and so the skies shall be --
And neither wilt thou ever take from me.

Now nowhere can I be, since Peace I found,
But mine is that which lies above the ground.

Comments

[thnidu]

Aha! I just realized why the verse structure seemed so familiar: It's the ending of a Shakespearean sonnet (with an extra foot in its first line... not its mouth).

• shant
→ shan't (not that Willie the Shake would've cared)

I like it.

[mneme]

Exactly correct, sir.

The extra foot was a rewrite error, I'll admit.

Hmm. Ah!

Deny me answer to my heart's behest!

[thnidu]

Good!

[batyatoon]

Though I be exiled to the endless dark,
And though they tell the world I'll not return;
Though thou may'st fan the flame or set the spark
That seas may boil and the land may burn;
My will's my own, and so the skies shall be --
And neither wilt thou ever take from me.

[mneme]

Wow. Now we just need a closing couplet for a full (though non-standard) sonnet.

Nowhere can I be, since Peace I found,
But mine is that which lies above the ground

[thnidu]

Whee!

Little scansiony bits:

batyatoon, this
• That seas may boil and the land may burn;
doesn't scan right for me unless I make "boil" two syllables (~ "boy-ell") or hold it like a half-note. Would you consider
?→ That seas may boil and that the land may burn;

mneme, this
• Nowhere can I be, since Peace I found,
feels to me lacking the first ˘ (unaccented syllable), and I stumbled while reading it. What about
?→ Then nowhere can I be, since Peace I found,


So then we'd have

Deny me answer to my heart's behest,
Deprive me of my property and lot,
Remove my person, force me by duress,
To where the land shan't bear me, I care not.
For I am unencumbered by oppression,
Nor canst thou wrest the sky from my possession.

Though I be exiled to the endless dark,
And though they tell the world I'll not return;
Though thou may'st fan the flame or set the spark
That seas may boil and that the land may burn;
My will's my own, and so the skies shall be --
And neither wilt thou ever take from me.

Then nowhere can I be, since Peace I found,
But mine is that which lies above the ground.

[mneme]

I think "now" rather than "then" for the leader on the first foot; it keeps the loose alliteration going and emphasizes the time that's so important in "since I found Serenity".

[batyatoon]

I was thinking of "boil" as two syllables, yeah, but maybe let's keep it as one.

[mneme]

Excellent! And...it's a sonnet. I think the name works (I couldn't come up with a better one, certainly).

[thnidu]

Very nice! But you give me too much credit. Editing, yes, but I'm pretty sure I didn't write that first couplet (5-6). It was in your original version; see my first comment.

[mneme]

I do not--I stole it from you when you were fixing That Elizabethan English Firefly meme on Facebook! That's what inspiried the sonnet idea in the first place.

[thnidu]

Oh. (Blush)

[thnidu]

• A Sonnet to Serentiy
→ (the obvious)

[mneme]

Quite.

[avevale_intelligencer]

Wonderful!

[mneme]

Thank you!