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The Best Couplets of All Time
Examples of Couplets in Sonnets

These are examples of couplets in Shakespearean sonnets, Spenserian sonnets, and curtal sonnets.

Traditional Sonnets

The traditional English sonnet typically ends with a rhymed couplet that "wraps things up." The most common English forms of the sonnet are the Spenserian sonnet (rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee), the Shakespearean sonnet (rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg) and the Petrarchan sonnet (rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde), although there are other variations.

Shakespearean Sonnets (rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg)

Sonnet 147: My Love is as a Fever
by William Shakespeare

My love is as a fever, longing still [a]
For that which longer nurseth the disease, [b]
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, [a]
The uncertain sickly appetite to please. [b]
My reason, the physician to my love, [c]
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, [d]
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve [c]
Desire is death, which physic did except. [d]
Past cure I am, now reason is past care, [e]
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest. [f]
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, [e]
At random from the truth vainly expressed, [f]
   For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, [g]
   Who art as black as Hell, as dark as night. [g]

Sonnet 73: That Time of Year
by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold [a]
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang [b]
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, [a]
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. [b]
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day [c]
As after sunset fadeth in the west; [d]
Which by and by black night doth take away, [c]
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. [d]
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire, [e]
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, [f]
As the deathbed whereon it must expire, [e]
Consumed with that which it was nourished by. [f]
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, [g]
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. [g]

Bright Star
by John Keats

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art [a]
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, [b]
And watching, with eternal lids apart, [a]
Like nature's patient sleepless eremite, [b]
The moving waters at their priestlike task [c]
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, [d]
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask [c]
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors; [d]
No yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, [e]
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, [f]
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, [e]
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, [f]
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, [g]
And so live ever or else swoon to death. [g]

Spenserian Sonnet (rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee)

Sonnet LXXV
by Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, [a]
But came the waves and washed it away; [b]
Again I wrote it with a second hand, [a]
But came the tide and made my pains his prey. [b]
“Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay [b]
A mortal thing so to immortalize, [c]
For I myself shall like to this decay, [b]
And eke my name be wiped out likewise [c]
“Not so.” quod I, “Let baser thing devise [c]
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; [d]
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize [c]
And in the heavens write your glorious name, [d]
Where, when as death shall all the world subdue, [e]
Our love shall live, and later life renew.” [e]

Petrarchan Sonnets (rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde/cdcdcd/cddcdd)

Credo
by Edward Arlington Robinson

I cannot find my way: there is no star [a]
In all the shrouded heavens anywhere; [b]
And there is not a whisper in the air [b]
Of any living voice but one so far [a]
That I can hear it only as a bar [a]
Of lost, imperial music, played when fair [b]
And angel fingers wove, and unaware, [b]
Dead leaves to garlands where no roses are. [a]

No, there is not a glimmer, nor a call, [c]
For one that welcomes, welcomes when he fears, [d]
The black and awful chaos of the night; [e]
For through it all—above, beyond it all— [c]
I know the far sent message of the years, [d]
I feel the coming glory of the light. [e]

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, [a]
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain [b]
Under my head till morning; but the rain [b]
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh [a]
Upon the glass and listen for reply, [a]
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain [b]
For unremembered lads that not again [b]
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. [a]
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, [c]
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, [d]
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: [e]
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, [d]
I only know that summer sang in me [c]
A little while, that in me sings no more. [e]

A Last Word
by Ernest Dowson

Let us go hence: the night is now at hand; [a]
The day is overworn, the birds all flown; [b]
And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown; [b]
Despair and death; deep darkness o'er the land, [a]
Broods like an owl; we cannot understand [a]
Laughter or tears, for we have only known [b]
Surpassing vanity: vain things alone [b]
Have driven our perverse and aimless band. [a]
Let us go hence, somewhither strange and cold, [c]
To Hollow Lands where just men and unjust [d]
Find end of labour, where's rest for the old, [c]
Freedom to all from love and fear and lust. [d]
Twine our torn hands! O pray the earth enfold [c]
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust. [d]

Whoso List to Hunt
by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, [a]
But as for me, alas!, I may no more. [b]
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, [b]
I am of them that farthest cometh behind. [a]
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind [a]
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore [b]
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, [b]
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. [a]
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, [c]
As well as I may spend his time in vain. [d]
And graven with diamonds in letters plain [d]
There is written, her fair neck round about: [c]
Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am, [d]
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame. [d]

Noli me tangere means "Touch me not." According to the Bible, this is what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she tried to embrace him after the resurrection. In May 1536, Wyatt was imprisoned in the Tower of London for allegedly committing adultery with Anne Boleyn. He was released from the Tower later that year, thanks to his friendship and his father's friendship with Thomas Cromwell. But during his stay in the Tower, Wyatt may have witnessed the execution of Anne Boleyn from his cell window, and the executions of the five other men with whom she was accused of committing adultery. A common interpretation of this poem is that the deer (dear) is Anne Boleyn, and that Caesar is King Henry VIII, who had her and her lovers beheaded.

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
by William Wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair: [a]
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by [b]
A sight so touching in its majesty: [b]
This City now doth, like a garment, wear [a]
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, [a]
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie [b]
Open unto the fields, and to the sky; [b]
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. [a]
Never did sun more beautifully steep [c]
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; [d]
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! [c]
The river glideth at his own sweet will: [d]
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; [c]
And all that mighty heart is lying still! [d]

The Unreturning
by Wilfred Owen

Suddenly night crushed out the day and hurled [a]
Her remnants over cloud-peaks, thunder-walled. [b]
Then fell a stillness such as harks appalled [b]
When far-gone dead return upon the world. [a]

There watched I for the Dead; but no ghost woke. [c]
Each one whom Life exiled I named and called. [a]
But they were all too far, or dumbed, or thralled, [a]
And never one fared back to me or spoke. [c]

Then peered the indefinite unshapen dawn [d]
With vacant gloaming, sad as half-lit minds, [e]
The weak-limned hour when sick men's sighs are drained. [f]
And while I wondered on their being withdrawn, [d]
Gagged by the smothering Wing which none unbinds, [e]
I dreaded even a heaven with doors so chained. [f]

Methought I Saw
by John Milton

Methought I saw my late espousèd saint [a]
   Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, [b]
   Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, [b]
   Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint. [a]
Mine, as whom washed from spot of childbed taint [a]
   Purification in the Old Law did save, [b]
   And such, as yet once more I trust to have [b]
   Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, [a]
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind. [c]
   Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight [d]
   Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined [c]
So clear as in no face with more delight. [d]
   But O, as to embrace me she inclined, [c]
   I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night. [d]

The Fountain Of Blood
by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Rachel Hadas

A fountain's pulsing sobs—like this my blood [a]
Measures its flowing, so it sometimes seems. [b]
I hear a gentle murmur as it streams; [b]
Where the wound lies I've never understood. [a]

Like water meadows, boulevards are flooded. [c]
Cobblestones, crisscrossed by scarlet rills, [d]
Are islands; creatures come and drink their fill. [d]
Nothing in nature now remains unblooded. [c]

I used to hope that wine could bring me ease, [e]
Could lull asleep my deeply gnawing mind. [f]
I was a fool: the senses clear with wine. [f]

I looked to Love to cure my old disease. [e]
Love led me to a thicket of IVs [e]
Where bristling needles thirsted for each vein. [f]

Spring and Fall, to a Young Child
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving [a]
Over Goldengrove unleaving? [a]
Leaves, like the things of man, you [b]
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? [b]
Ah! as the heart grows older [c]
It will come to such sights colder [c]
By and by, nor spare a sigh [d]
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; [d]
And yet you will weep and know why. [d]
Now no matter, child, the name: [e]
Sorrow's springs are the same. [e]
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed [f]
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed: [f]
It is the blight man was born for, [g]
It is Margaret you mourn for. [g]

Leda and the Swan
by William Butler Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still [a]
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed [b]
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, [a]
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. [b]

How can those terrified vague fingers push [c]
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? [d]
And how can body, laid in that white rush, [c]
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? [d]

A shudder in the loins engenders there [e]
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower [f]
And Agamemnon dead.
                                    Being so caught up, [g]
So mastered by the brute blood of the air, [e]
Did she put on his knowledge with his power [f]
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? [g]

Blank Verse Sonnets and Free Verse Sonnets

A blank verse sonnet abandons rhyme but maintains iambic meter (ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM etc.) perhaps with some degree of metrical variation, while a free verse sonnet does not employ regular meter.

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

Longer Poems with Strong Closing Couplets

A couplet can be used to end a longer poem that may, or may not, be written in couplets.

Wulf and Eadwacer (anonymous Anglo-Saxon ballad, circa 990 AD)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My clan's curs pursue him like crippled game.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different.

Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
Here bloodthirsty men howl for sacrifice.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different.

My thoughts pursued Wulf like panting hounds.
Whenever it rained and I sobbed, disconsolate,
huge, battle-strong arms grabbed and engulfed me.
Good feelings for him, but for me loathsome!
Wulf, oh, my Wulf! My desire for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.
Do you hear, Heaven-Watcher? A wolf has borne
our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.

Translator's Notes: This ancient poem has been characterized as an elegy, a wild lament, a lover's lament, a passion play, a riddle, a song, or an early ballad (it may be the earliest English poem with a refrain). However, most scholars place it within the genre of the frauenlied, or woman's song. It may be the first extant poem authored by a woman in the fledgling English language; it seems likely that the poet was a woman because we don't usually think of ancient scops pretending to be women. "Wulf and Eadwacer" might also be called the first English feminist text, as the speaker seems to be challenging and mocking the man who has been raping and impregnating her. And the poem's closing metaphor of a loveless relationship being like a song in which two voices never harmonized remains one of the strongest in the English language, or any language.—Michael R. Burch

For more examples of longer poems with strong closing couplets, please click here: Longer Poems with Strong Closing Couplets.

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