A poem with a pattern poetry often takes a similar rhythm and rhyming pattern. william shakespeare was the most famous poet and playwright of the day, and probably still is today. here is a piece of poetry which he wrote. it is called a `sonnet' and follows a set pattern. see if you can work out the pattern of rhymes and verses. a sonnet always has fourteen lines usually arranged in three groups of four lines with two rhyming lines called a rhyming couplet- at the end. ; a lot of elizabethan poetry was about love. this sonnet compares his sweetheart to the lovely, short summer months, whose warmth and sunshine fades so quickly. he says that his sweetheart will always be beautiful, and that as long as people live, this poem lives, and so will the memory of her beauty live. the poem has lasted about 400 years so far, so shakespeare wasn't wrong! to his love shall i compare thee to a summer's day? thou art more lovely and more temperate * : rough winds do shake the darling buds of may, and summer's lease hath all too short a date: sometimes too hot the eye of heaven * shines, and often is his gold complexion dimmed: and every fair from fair sometime declines, by chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed * . but thy eternal summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou owest: nor shall death brag thou that wanderest in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou growest: so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee. by william shakespeare * temperate means warm, reliable, not stormy ; * `the eye of heaven' which sometimes burns too hot.what do you think that means? * 'untrimmed' here means, unstopped. shakespeare is saying that in nature, you can't stop living things fading and dying. here's a tricky task! see if you can write your own sonnet for the scene in stamford when queen elizabeth rode into town. the moment you woke up and remembered that today is the day of the queen's visit to your house. don't forget, that for a sonnet you'll need three verses of four lines each, and then two rhyming lines at the end. or a simpler, shorter task might be to write just the two rhyming lines at the end, which summarise the whole poem and craps simulation. Be able to reduce the frequency of sevens; and if you can do that, you can get an edge at craps. the strategy for beating craps starts with arranging the dice the way you want; that's called "setting" the dice, and is easy to do. then you have to throw the dice in such a manner that the result differs from random; that part is difficult, and requires much practice. you also have to learn which bets to make to take advantage of your skill, which is easy. and you have to be able to get away with all of the above in a casino; that part has been easy in the past, but may require more effort in the future if this book inspires large numbers of gamblers to develop crapshooting skill. most people are coordinated enough to get an edge on some of the bets on a dice layout, if they learn the proper technique and practice enough. i say that because i have learned how to do it, and nobody ever accused me of being coordinated. i went out for every sport offered in high school, and was among the first cut except for sports involving long-distance running. if i can learn to toss dice well enough to get an edge, you can too. if you are more coordinated than i am, then your potential is to achieve more control over the dice than i have been able to do. the fun and satisfaction of learning to control the dice is similar to the feeling of accomplishment one gets from doing well in a sport. you start out thinking that making the dice behave is impossible. then gradually with practice you improve. you have the same feeling of satisfaction after a good session at the crap tables as you do after a good day on the lanes, court, links, gridiron, or diamond. going to dinner with friends who have just won money on your dice tosses is like celebrating with teammates after hitting a game-winning home run or tossing a game-winning touchdown pass.