The early Italian sonnets in English, those of Wyatt, Surrey, and Sidney, are very irregular: Sidney's nearly always end in a couplet and rime the octave abbaabba or abababab or ababbaba. Sometimes he uses such a scheme as ababbababccbcc. Wyatt has one rimed abbaaccacddcee, and Surrey one ababababababaa.
Donne's Holy Sonnets (written about 1617, though not printed till 1633, 1635) were regular in form, and were practically the first English sonnets not concerned with love. Milton followed this tradition, and expanded it to further themes—his only successful poems in lighter mood are sonnets—occasional and political subjects—
... in his hand
The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!
On the formal side Milton handled the sonnet, as has been said, with the freedom of a master.
From the time of Milton's (1642-58) very few sonnets were written in England till towards the end of the eighteenth century. Then the form was revived, under the original impulse of the Wartons in the mid-century, by Bowles, and given a new life by Wordsworth and Keats. In 1850 Mrs. Browning published her Sonnets from the Portuguese, and in 1870 and 1881 Rossetti his sonnet-sequence, The House of Life. The latter contains on the whole the truest representatives of the Italian model.
The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale:
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her make hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs:
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale.
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;
The busy bee her honey now she mings;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be that e'en in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries!
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feelst a lover's case,
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, e'en of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there, ungratefulness?
Sir Phillip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, xxxi.
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go—
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!
John Donne.
Cyriack, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear
To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;
Not to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heav'ns hand or will, nor bate one jot
Or heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
—The conscience, friend, to have lost them overpli'd
In liberty's defence, my noble task,
Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
This thought might lead me through this world's vain mask,
Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
Milton.