A sonnet is a 14-line poem usually associated with Shakespeare, who wrote more than 150 of them.

Structure

A sonnet has 14 lines broken up into three four-line stanzas and a two-line stanza at the end that closes out the poem.

Each line has 10 syllables.

It has an alternating rhyming structure that looks like this:

abab

cdcd

efef

gg

That means that the first and third lines of each stanza rhyme, and the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme. The last word of the final two-line stanza, also known as a couplet, should rhyme, as well.

Example

Stay Or Go?

© GA Thompson

Published: March 2016

The days go by, then a month, then a year,

and still through the days I see not a change.

No matter what happens, you still aren't here,

and how you just disappeared is what's strange.

No explanation, no warning, just gone.

I wish I had just some of your courage

to go leave one rainy morning at dawn,

to leave one day without any message.

How I long for somewhere to be renewed

or to just disappear, just not to be,

not to see, not to feel, not to hear you,

the ghost that you are, which I long to be.

But as many days that I want to go,

there are more that I want to stay and know.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/stay-or-go