This anagram has an unusual constraint. Can you spot it?
Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
But found no cure: the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire--my mistress' eyes.
The Perfect Gift
I viewed that field quite affably in spring:
The budding color, odor fresh and pure;
I uttered "No" tooh-so many rings,
Where precious stones, or silver, hid, secure;
I eyed a frosted stack of hand-made candy:
Huge, gracious wealths of truffles, standing tall;
I harked a songbird, so alive and dandy...
But, fie! I wouldn't offer these at all:
My darling's voice tops any bluebird's tweet;
Her breasts - no flower livelier than them.
What lure has chocolate? She's divinely sweet;
Why buy that diamond? She's my valid gem.
I'd make this bid, this humble valentine,
And happily I'd plead: My dear, be mine.
All of the poem's O's are carefully arranged into a fitting shape.
Shakespeare's sonnet 144 about the battle between 'good' and 'evil' love is anagrammed into 2 eight-line poems, one discussing Evil and the other, Good. However, when combined, they also contain a word-acrostic: reading down each 5th word results in a quote from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
How futile to recall the Vile
That practiced guile and evil scorn:
Some former pains incite that bile,
And Evil lives in men, reborn.
I'll say old brutes do not appall
My world, where dignity lives on;
They're now but phantoms, after all.
It's time to rate them stopped and gone.
Good God, why are the gifted few
Who boldly fight for good, unsung?
I think my claim is trite but true:
Among us, best men oft die young.
But, though they are interred in tombs,
We may still meet with them afresh:
In years to come, their spark will bloom;
It will imbue our bones and flesh.
A sonnet by Alfred Lord Tennyson anagrammed into another sonnet, which contains 2 acrostics relating to Tennyson: His name is spelled down the 1st letters, and reading down each 4th word results in one of his best-known quotes, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
If I were loved, as I desire to be,
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
And range of evil between death and birth,
That I should fear, if I were loved by thee?
All the inner, all the outer world of pain
Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine
As I have heard that, somewhere in the main,
Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.
'T were joy, not fear, claspt hand-in-hand with thee,
To wait for death--mute--careless of all ills,
Apart upon a mountain, tho' the surge
Of some new deluge from a thousand hills
Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge
Below us, as far on as eye could see.
An Ode of A Healing Heart
As woes abound, 'tis harder to suppose
Life will get better soon, but fairly worse,
From bitter grief to far more hated foes;
Right now, I have to suffer through that curse.
Euphoric, I had loved her, I declare,
Despite the differences, and then, it seems,
That heat was lost in our abrupt affair,
Eternal no more than a fleeting dream.
No, I will never touch her face with glee
Nor guide her to our bed when she feels blue -
Yet I shall have a thought to strengthen me:
She once had loved me, while our love was true.
One raw pain at a time will fade, and then,
New joys will all appear in me, again.
A sonnet by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, anagrammed into a sonnet spoofing its title.
A Superscription
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also call'd No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
Of ultimate things unutter'd the frail screen.
Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart
One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
Of that wing'd Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,
Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.
A Superstition
1. Hey, note these horseshoes, hung there on that wall!
2. My life is fraught with curious beliefs...
3. Hold no umbrellas open in my halls,
4. Nor hum one haunting tune, however brief;
5. Alert me, please, if some black cat will pass
6. The pathway when we take those midnight strolls;
7. Don't let me glimpse that shattered looking glass -
8. I seldom find these acts remotely droll.
9. In fact, this poem's scheme may pose a hitch
10. That may yet leave me somewhat unamused -
11. I reached the ode's oasis, after which
12. That loathed and fateful number must be used!
I'll bate my breath... 'til the thirteenth... is over...
14. Then run away, to find some four-leaf clovers!
An anagram of the poem "A Soldier" which is also an acrostic of the subject poet's full name.
A Soldier
He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled,
That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust,
But still lies pointed as it plowed the dust.
If we who sight along it round the world,
See nothing worthy to have been its mark,
It is because like men we look too near,
Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere,
Our missiles always make too short an arc.
They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect
The curve of earth, and striking, break their own;
They make us cringe for metal-point on stone.
But this we know, the obstacle that checked
And tripped the body, shot the spirit on
Further than target ever showed or shone.
The Twilight of the Veteran
Reclining on the porch in idleness
On inky eves that dim the nearby shore
Brings back a few past phantoms I repress,
Encounters with the cruelty of war,
Rekindling tasks, the worst that I had gotten -
That smoke, those shouts, the people I had killed...
Luck favored me, but I had not forgotten;
Eternal battle lurks within me still.
Each night I'm haunted by loathed silhouettes,
For Fate, too keen to carry out its role,
Rewards me with those specters of regret,
Or wretched hate, that eat away this soul.
So do not wait, sweet Death - I welcome you;
This soldier's final trip has long been due.
