Experimenting with the possibilities of the sonnet form, this playful work deploys the rules of grammar as a wooing technique
Sonnet LXIII
O grammar-rules, O now your virtues show;
So children still read you with awful eyes,
As my young dove may, in your precepts wise,
Her grant to me by her own virtue know;
For late, with heart most high, with eyes most low,
I craved the thing which ever she denies;
She, lightning Love displaying Venus’ skies,
Lest once should not be heard, twice said, No, No!
Sing then, my muse, now Io Pæan sing;
Heav’ns envy not at my high triumphing,
But grammar’s force with sweet success confirm;
For Grammar says (O this dear Stella weigh,)
For Grammar says (to Grammar who says nay)
That in one speech two negatives affirm!