904
[The four sonnets below are mutual anagrams. The first two (headed "#1" and "#2") are "found sonnets", constructed from 28 single lines from 28 different sonnets by 27 different authors (alas, one author appears twice). These 28 lines have not been altered in any way, except for punctuation, yet sonnets #1 and #2 scan
reasonably well and are perfect anagrams. (Of course there is little rhyming, due to the nature of their construction.)
The next two anagrams, "Herald One" and "Herald Two", are original sonnets inspired by #1 and #2. Besides attempting to reflect some of the qualities of their parent sonnets, each line in these contains the initials of the authors of the corresponding lines of #1 and #2, arranged in columns when displayed in a mono-spaced font. In Herald One the two columns of initials are placed close together in an attempt to suggest the roman numberal I; in Herald Two they are spread apart so they look more like a II.
Five of the 56 author initials are J but there are no J's in the text, so I used the rule that a space in the appropriate column always represents a J.]
#1
It rained three autumn days, then close to frost
Passing from thence, a local tincture drew
With eye so practised in each form around:
Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding's neat post-chaise.
Living, the oak-leaf wreath his temples bound,
Which yields to men and angels pleasant fruit,
And where the vane upon its crest is bold,
With round completed on the grass it lay.
Roar forth a challenge in the world's despite,
Of a material creed and risen to heights sublime.
The neighbours at their shady doors swept clean,
Lost in the night, have ceased to pray for dawn.
The morn is cold. A whiteness newly-brought
Brings down the curtain o'er the play of life.
=
#2
When I, as fast as e'er my pen could trot,
As wandering lonelier than the Poet's cloud,
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
And russet cincture thy loose pale-tinged hair,
Wilt thou my cares forget in heaviness
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries?
And will thy presence dim that glorious sphere,
So clear as in no face with more delight?
In scorching splendors that my earth-life burned,
At the round earth's imagined corners blow;
Standing with arms out-stretched and flower-like face,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
That hath over blue seas strayed in hope to find
This song of "Peace on earth, good will t'ward men,"
=
Herald One
O muse worn thin by chance's hellish hand,
Your poems base and foolish I disown;
Negate the dictum of the whitewashed stand
That tenet-honed recruits arranged alone.
Acclaim to hearts somewhere up in the chaff
This point profound to Rome, while given ways
Bend comic style to ease, unite and laugh:
Harpoon of kingdom's bitter-weather days
Forget now dormant scriptures, cunning tale,
For narrow, witless creeds their fools reveal;
Transplant its heart intact, let tongues prevail
Of sounder highs and teachings forged in steel.
Repel anew all childish myths portrayed,
As yet the blind watch-builder plies his trade.
Herald Two
As countless summers hereto passed away,
With potent love and moonlit gentle train,
The river white unearthed its silky spray,
Through contours of renown beset by pain.
Transformed between sun-legacies by thought,
Availed of pathways trimmed in nascent pine,
Outshone this earth of elsewhere-bordered haunts
Along this epic coil of loathing mine.
Men scrapped a doctrine grown of childish hate
That ere did go constrain this sudden glance,
And heretofore adored the guiltless fate
In principles of law and random chance
Around the wistful, lower hills of gray
Then thrice I heard the bells: 'twas Christmas day.
[Here are two pictures in which the columns of author initials are highlighted. On the right are the details of which author each set of initials refers to, and where that author's line in #1 or #2 comes from. All 28 source sonnets can be found in various places online, should you wish to examine them more closely.]
