Crumpled Sonnets (soprano & clarinet)

arrangement for soprano and clarinet

Sonnet 109 / Crumpled Sonnet (Evie Ivy)

Sonnet 109
O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reigned
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained,
To leave for nothing all they sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

Crumpled Sonnet
I cannot comprehend how you commenced,
From where in my heart the beginning foamed
To a fountain of such false inspiration.
A sonnet would have been too beautiful,
Too sweet and tamed for you, but for me - joyful.

You didn't want to be the brief haiku;
Of truth and nature you were no confection,
To have been brief would've been too kind of you.

You wished to be free verse and flow as pleased,
But in no order, sequence have you flowed!
Now as I sit among crumpled paper,
I realize that when your words first showed

I should not have cared, or have been stricken,
Yet, you were the sonnet I should've written.

Crumpled Sonnet © Evie Ivy (used with permission)

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Works Category: Chamber, Songwriting