You’re almost ready to write your own sonnet. But before you do, it’s always a good idea, in any field, to take a look at what others have done before, especially those who did it really well. In the sonnet below, written by Shakespeare, look for all the elements that you’ve learned about: the rhyme scheme, the meter, the number of lines, the subject matter, the shift in tone. Notice how Shakespeare has masterfully put it all together into a moving meditation on the impermanence of youth and the inevitability of death. The rhythm never seems mechanical, and the rhymes never feel forced. The sestet, and especially the final couplet, gives the reader a sense of conclusion—the treatment of the theme feels complete. The finished sonnet, as its author claims, is immortal indeed:
"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate: / Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: / Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines / And often is his gold complexion dimmed; / And every fair from fair sometimes declines, / By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed; / But thy eternal summer shall not fade, / Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; / Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, / When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: / So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
Now you’re ready to write your own sonnet. It can be difficult at first, but don’t be discouraged—even Shakespeare had to work at it! With a lot of practice and a little pluck, you’ll be serenading your lover or lambasting the powers that be in no time, and in a poetic form that will almost certainly endure for centuries to come.