The following sonnet uses all the rhymes (nearly) and much of the iambic line of metre that still work with modern pronunciation of the words – dignity for instance just won’t make sense today if pronounced ‘dignit-eye’ – from William Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none‘ (see it at the link). It was meant to use my own failures at improving my own self-esteem at a past time (ad tbh honest, still sometimes) to make sense of the final line: ‘Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds‘, in a positive rather than vindictive manner against others, as Shakespeare does to his disdaining male lover. It, by the way, rather shamefacedly illustrates the dependence I once had on others’ eyes to lend me worth I could not see myself, and wanted to see (in the last thing lies the problem). That is why it is a round-about answer to the prompt. It refers to someone now gone – the memory more painful than it seems.
By Stevie B
You with such power in sight, see nothing,
Of what I am beneath the sorry show,
You can move others though you cannot bring
Yourself to see some worth there; cold, and slow
To offer me from proud eyes in your face
That benefice that might see excellence
In the stewardship of your own sweet grace
That's lent to me to save me the expense
Of buying in some worth of show. That's sweet
In you, So let me then so live and die,
That honey that you shed will truly meet
The basest need I have for that sour lie
That makes much more than shows in my poor deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
With love
Steven xxxxxxxx
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