Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog 47 Sonnet- Time is a Treasure...

SONNET- Time is a Treasure

The Shakespearean sonnet falls into 4 parts, in a sense. The first four lines (rhymed a,b,a,b) tend to introduce the subject, the next (c,d,c,d) develop the subject, the next four come to a sort of conclusion (e,f,e,f) and the last two lines, a rhyming couplet (g,g) bring it to a final conclusion or suddenly reverse the direction of the rest of the poem. This sonnet on time illustrates this process I feel.

SONNET (Time is a Treasure)

Time is a treasure that can be but spent,

Not heaped up like the miser's hidden gold,

Not stored against some distant ill event,

No matter how we'd like to hoard and hold.

The minutes trickle through the open hand

Like glittering gold dust, too fine to keep;

And even heaped as hours they will not stand,

Stolen by passing winds, even as we sleep.

But if it be well-spent, though seeming gone,

It is returned, enriched, like something lent

With interest, that still goes working on;

That still remains, though it may seem it went.

         The memoried growth, the deeds that make good measure,

         Forever shine as everlasting treasure.