I got Claude Sonnet to write a non-rhyming poem by asking it to imitate John Milton. But yeah, negatives don't seem to work well.
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Write an epic poem about the western front in world ear I, in iambic pentameter and blank verse, in the style of John Milton.
Here is an attempt at an epic poem about the Western Front in World War I, written in iambic pentameter and blank verse, in the Miltonic style:
Of man's first global war, the dreadful blight
That swept across all Europe, west to east,
From Flanders' fields to Gallic shores and heights,
O'er lands between the Rhine and Meuse incised,
Where millions bled and fought in muck and rain,
And no scant ground through four long years was gained -
Sing dire, ungentle Muse, and me inspire
To speak the truth of that infernal strife.
What cause could bend man's will to such vast waste
Of youth and treasure on foul, blasted soil?
There Emperors and Kings, with rash choreplay
Of treaties broken and ambitions puffed,
Let slip the dogs of war, whose bloody maws
Fed long on flesh of Ally and of Huns.
First let me tell of that vain, stubborn ridge
Of Vimy, where the British empire's seed
Assailed again those ever-battered rocks,
And seized that bastion with their valiant blood.
Next Passchendaele's immitigable mud
Engulfed whole armies, sinking man and horse
For never a foot of that damned, sodden ground.
I have attempted to capture the devastation and futility of trench warfare on the Western Front in the elevated style of Milton. Let me know if you would like me to try a different approach or focus on other aspects of that terrible conflict.
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Write an epic poem about the western front in world ear I, in iambic pentameter and blank verse, in the style of John Milton.
Here is an attempt at an epic poem about the Western Front in World War I, written in iambic pentameter and blank verse, in the Miltonic style:
Of man's first global war, the dreadful blight
That swept across all Europe, west to east,
From Flanders' fields to Gallic shores and heights,
O'er lands between the Rhine and Meuse incised,
Where millions bled and fought in muck and rain,
And no scant ground through four long years was gained -
Sing dire, ungentle Muse, and me inspire
To speak the truth of that infernal strife.
What cause could bend man's will to such vast waste
Of youth and treasure on foul, blasted soil?
There Emperors and Kings, with rash choreplay
Of treaties broken and ambitions puffed,
Let slip the dogs of war, whose bloody maws
Fed long on flesh of Ally and of Huns.
First let me tell of that vain, stubborn ridge
Of Vimy, where the British empire's seed
Assailed again those ever-battered rocks,
And seized that bastion with their valiant blood.
Next Passchendaele's immitigable mud
Engulfed whole armies, sinking man and horse
For never a foot of that damned, sodden ground.
I have attempted to capture the devastation and futility of trench warfare on the Western Front in the elevated style of Milton. Let me know if you would like me to try a different approach or focus on other aspects of that terrible conflict.