More of Shakespeare's Sonnets
By Fox-Trot-9

Prologue: To Timid Poets 4

But sonnets oft intimidate the rest
Of us, who write, revise and try in vain,
When slips of scansion break the poet's best,
Compiling pain on pain to our disdain.
Despite it all, do keep this thought in mind:
That those supremes who mastered sonnetry,
Those brilliant poets of their age and kind,
(Francesco, Dante, Wyatt, Howard, ay,
And Chapman, Milton, Percy, Donne and Keats,
And Wordsworth, Edna, Sidney, Spenser sweet,
And Frost, Rossetti, Brooke and Owen, Yeats) *
Were once the worst ere their accomplished feat,
      Revising crookéd lines, improving skill,
      And braving blockage by the force of will.

(To be continued...)

A/N: Please comment, or at least tell me why it sucks. Any criticism is better than none at all.

* Francesco...Yeats = a few famous poets that wrote sonnets. See "Sonnet" on Wikipedia.
(1) Francesco Petrarca = Italian poet (1304-1374).
(2) Dante Alighieri = Italian poet (1265-1321).
(3) Thomas Wyatt = English poet (1503-1542).
(4) Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey = English poet (1517-1547).
(5) George Chapman = English poet (1559-1634).
(6) John Milton = English poet (1608-1674).
(7) Percy Bysshe Shelley = English poet (1792-1822).
(8) John Donne = English poet (1572-1631).
(9) John Keats = English poet (1795-1821).
(10) William Wordsworth = English poet (1770-1850).
(11) Edna St. Vincent Millay = American poetess (1892-1950).
(12) Sir Philip Sidney = English poet (1554-1586).
(13) Edmund Spenser = English poet (1552-1599).
(14) Robert Frost = American poet (1874-1963).
(15) Christina Rossetti = English poet (1830-1894).
(16) Rupert Brooke = English poet (1887-1915).
(17) Wilfred Owen = English poet (1893-1918).
(18) William Butler Yeats = Irish poet (1865-1939).