A line-by-line anagram in which each line in the first sonnet ends with the same rhyme sound as, and has a similar meaning to, the corresponding line in the second. Thus one can make 2^14 = 16384 anagram sonnet pairs by deciding whether or not to switch each of the 14 lines.

SHAKE'S PAIR

When here I sit and mark this game of life,
Hot rustling time releases few. Hie, go -
Amid the weeks of toil and trouble rife,
Let prisoners sleep. This seething Tarot show:
I see them in the city up and down -
Is God a fool, man-barer? Nevermore.
Few envy so the head that bears a crown;
The hearts, we daemon-sad, so rapid soar.
The robin, too, and violet fox-glove,
The spa in Athens, red-gilt village vast;
The coney in the field, the morning dove
Lie not; youth vainly shall grow duller fast.
Untarnished gold may be the hope of some;
Let gather Fates, the icon moon sets dumb.

HE IS A SPARK

Grim death-like man, I hew of ashen strife;
I see the struggle in this realm of woe.
The rot, routines, fake idol, Bedlam, wife:
These things persist; the Reaper toils on slow.
I pity man, deduce he's in the town,
As men for gain do labor ever more.
Hot debts at Eve, he wears an achy frown,
As in a dream he passes toward the door.
The noted ox, to living floor above,
All things that ever lived in ages past;
The mind none cheer, the dignity of love
Though fair and lovely will not, surely, last.
Yes, pain he feeds. Hoot, gambol on the drum:
The best of things must to a real end come.

The first six verses of Psalm 19, anagrammed into a paraphrase of a related poem by Walt Whitman.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language,
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven,
And his circuit unto the ends of it:
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

When I had listened to the erudite astronomer,
When his high thoughts were arranged and charted before me,
When I was shown the length and breadth and height of it,
The Earth, the horned Moon, the chariot of fire,
The hundredth flight of the shuttle through heavyish air,
How soon, mysteriously, I became sad and sick,
Had to wander out, ousted, charging through the forest,
Joining the sure chaos here in a foreign heath,
Having forgotten the vocation of the learned man,
And in the mystic clearing, once more looked up
In perfect silence at the sermon in the stars.

My People
Langston Hughes

The night is beautiful
So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

The poet effuses so gleefully, palpably espousing the pulse of his fabulous race:

O fathers, be not
Unhealthily mute,
Asleep to the pleasures of home.

To fuel a boast is not impiety;
I am huge! Yes!

A poem shaped by a simple but ingenious constraint.

No
by Thomas Hood

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon!
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day -
No sky - no earthly view
No distance looking blue -
No road - no street - no 't'other side the way'-
No end to any Row -
No indications where the Crescents go -
No top to any steeple -
No recognitions of familiar people -
No courtesies for showing 'em! -
No knowing 'em! -
No travelling at all - no locomotion,
No inkling of the way - no notion -
'No go' - by land or ocean -
No mail - no post -
No news from any foreign coast -
No Park - no Ring - no afternoon gentility -
No company - no nobility -

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flow'rs, no leaves, no birds -
November!

On
by Mike Keith

On Helen - on Lenore!
On rapping on door!
On night - on fright - on tinkling of bells -
On sobs - on her sorrow
On inflows of tomorrow -
On cold - on calm - on one bosom that swells
On man, beyond profane -
On grave lessons of love -
On nec-romantic lore -
On tell-tale hearts that swore -
On betting the devil your head -
On spirits dead -
On demon cats of black - on insanity -
On wan, weepy woman - on eternity -
On coughs, on coffins -
On morgues - on monkeys -
On finance men and flunkies -
On Troy - on Rome - on erotic solemnity -
On baneful woe - on intensity -

On winter, on sluggishness, on each elusory day,
On negative Fate and dormant hope -
On wife, on taboo, on temporality, on touch,
On rain, on brain, on fire, on pyre -
OnomotoPOEia!

Foolish About Windows
Carl Sandburg

I was foolish about windows.
The house was an old one and the windows were small.
I asked a carpenter to come and open the
walls and put in bigger windows.
"The bigger the window the more it costs," he said.
"The bigger the cheaper," I said.
So he tore off siding and plaster and laths
And put in a big window and bigger windows.
I was hungry for windows.

One neighbor said, "If you keep on you'll be
able to see everything there is."
I answered, "That'll be all right, that'll be
classy enough for me."
Another neighbor said, "Pretty soon your house
will be all windows."
And I said, "Who would the joke be on then?"
And still another, "Those who live in
glass houses gather no moss."
And I said, "Birds of a feather should not throw stones,
and a soft answer turneth away rats."

Wonky About Windows
M. Keith

They were wonky about Windows.
When the computer was a big oblong thing and its OS was slow,
They got Bill to concoct a new one
with DOS and GUI windows.
"A larger OS will need a bigger RAM," he said.
"Son, RAM is just about free," IBM said.
So Bill's shop wrangled with bytes and words
And then it snowballed and snowballed,
Even netting Bill a few spare dollars.

One horrified user said, "If this hogwash goes on
I'll phone the lawyers."
Gates grinned, "Did you say 'Eunuchs'? Net-WHO?"
The tech rags foreboded, "If this Pandora's Safe blows open,
our whole era will be one huge Windows brouhaha!"
And he said, "Oho! So what, idiot?"
Then the refined historian-narrator said, "Ignore the dope's fortune."
And the anti-trust heroes said, "The Gates of Hell
shall not prevail against us."

Shakespeare's 143rd sonnet, anagrammed into a related nursery rhyme.

Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catch
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent:
So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;
   So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
   If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

The gal named Mary shuffles through the house -
But view her as she strokes her frisky lamb,
Whose brow is whiter than a snowy mouse,
Fleece chalky as French cliffs of epigram.
Each place she'd bathe, attain or hie without
(To parish church or at the stuffy crypt),
The lamb's instinct did follow her about
(So close around that twice she nearly tripped).
Back to her class that zany lamb would fly
And cause a hubbub (then they fetched it in);
It overturn'd the inkwell, whacked the pie,
Though this was chief and total public sin.
   "Anoint this lofty one," the brats then cried,
   "For now it's certain: school is rather fried!"

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