Hand in Hand/On Sonnet Structure

by Alice MacDonald Fleming

On Sonnet Structure

A SONNET may prove difficult to write,
Always supposing that you keep the rules:
These be a decalogue, and many fools
The world terms "sonneteers" disdain them quite,
Scorn to chime octave or scan sestet right.
Poor unskilled workmen, gibing at their tools!
Their rhyme sounds ring, like those bedizened mules
Whose bells send jangling cadence down the height.

A sonnet should have one idea, complete
And perfect, penned in fourteen noble lines:
Pacing with music on ten stately feet:
And when the octave worthily enshrines
Jewels of phrase, and sestet brightly shines
With golden words, the sonnet stands concrete.