Two computer-generated sonnets, and links to the source code that created them. The code works by randomly mixing lines from existing poems.
The sonnets and their sources:
And Should I
And should I leave thee then, thou pretty elf?
Damon, farewell.
I’ll teach thee, lovely Phillis, what love is.
You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why?
Doth fancy purchase praise, and virtue shame?
Yet serves not this! What next, what other shift?
If this her worst, how should her best inflame?
“Murder! O murder!” Is there none to aid me?
Memoria. As intellectual, it is memory.
Fly low, dear love, thy sun dost thou not see?
Amor. Then is she love, embracing charity.
To drown in sight of land is double spite.
Are women woe to men, traps for their falls?
Count it a loss to lose a faithful slave.
Sources:
Delia by Samuel Daniel
Diana by Henry Constable
Fidessa by Bartholomew Griffin
Idea by Michael Drayton
Phillis by Thomas Lodge
Most True That
Most true that dearest life shall end with love.
What should I say? what yet remains to do?
Check him but once and he will soon retire.
In such a breast what heart would not be thrall?
Most true that she contemns the god of love.
Bearing the wound, I needs must feel the pain.
May show of goodness lurk in treachery?
Honour is pride, and pride is nought but pain.
Dear to my soul, then leave me not forsaken!
Yes, yes, I dare, I can, I must, I will!
Ah rocks, where are your robes of moss?
Trees, rocks, and flocks, what, are you pensive for my loss?
And I,–oh would I might, or would she meant it!
Heavens are not kind to them that know them most.
Sources:
Delia by Samuel Daniel
Diana by Henry Constable
Fidessa by Bartholomew Griffin
Idea by Michael Drayton
Phillis by Thomas Lodge
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