Two haiku peeking out (two voices speaking out?) from between the lines of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 12” and “Sonnet 5″… :- )
Reading Between the Lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 12: Elizabethan Haiku Nos. 12a & 12b
behold the lofty trees
which canopy the herd!
summer’s green
trees barren of leaves
and sheaves borne on the bier . . .
Time’s scythe
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white:
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defense
Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.
Reading Between the Lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 5: Elizabethan Haiku Nos. 5c & 5d
never-resting time . . .
summer’s flowers
with winter meet
o’er-snowed . . .
summer’s flowers
lease but their show
Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness everywhere:
Then were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,
Lease but their show, their substance still lives sweet.
* * * *
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