I veckan har kulturföreningen Kosmos (här i Vadstena) möte om kvinnliga sonettpoeter. Jag vet att Monica Lantz kommer att ta upp Selma Lagerlöfs teatersonetter, Inger Christensens fjärilssonetter, Lotta Olsson och Louise Labé, en fransk 1500-talspoet. Men inte dessa två:
Den alltid så melankoliska Charlotte Smith. Hon hade anledning att vara sorgsen, läs här: Kvinnliga romantiker.

Poor melancholy bird—that all night long
Tell’st to the Moon, thy tale of tender woe;
From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow,
And whence this mournful melody of song?

Thy poet’s musing fancy would translate
What mean the sounds that swell thy little breast,
When still at dewy eve thou leav’st thy nest,
Thus to the listening night to sing thy fate!

Pale Sorrow’s victims wert thou once among,
Tho’ now releas’d in woodlands wild to rove?
Say—hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong,
Or diedst thou—martyr of disastrous love?
Ah! songstress sad! that such my lot might be,
To sigh and sing at liberty—like thee!

och Elisabeth Barrett Browning, som jag just har börjat läsa, en till sonett ur samlingen the Portuguese, nr 14:

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
I love her for her smile … her look … her way
Of speaking gently, … for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

Lagerlöfs sonetter finns utgivna av Ellerströms:
Selma Lagerlöfs Teatersonetter, Lagerroth & Stenberg, 2014.
Ingen recensent tycker att sonetterna är särskilt bra poesi – de har karaktär av diktövningar och dagsverser. Men de är naturligtvis intressanta om man tycker om Lagerlöf eller teaterhistoria.