Lord Denney's Players has announced the winners of its fifth annual sonnet contest. Congratulations to the following award recipients:

• First Prize: "The Constants" by Lindsay Rogers, English major, College of Arts and Sciences
• Second Prize: "From the Deep" by Jade Josie, English major, College of Arts and Sciences
• Honorable Mention: "A Silent World" by Lindsay Rogers, English major, College of Arts and Sciences

Each year, LDP partners with the Department of English and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies to invite Ohio State undergraduates from all colleges and majors to submit individual Shakespearean sonnets. Winning sonnets earn $100 for first place, $50 for second place and $25 for honorable mention.

"The Constants," by Lindsay Rogers

Softly paces the ambiguous Time,
Onward he forges, leaving naught behind.
In all his fates in the heart doth climb
“My ravages all creation will find.”

Death ever approaches on silent wings,
To his dominion all doomed souls are flown.
To him beholden are all Earthen kings,
“All nature devoured 'till I stand alone.”

Love’s duplicitous affections she wields,
Humanity’s frail hearts she shapes in glee.
E'en on cruelty's battlefields she shields;
“To delight or ruin ye now follow me.”

In hollow havens these three so encroach,
In life to thee these constants ever coach.

"From the Deep," by Jade Josie

Some normal evenings were unlike the rest.
Snatched from your warm embrace, forced from your breast
Just as I think my pain has reached its crest,  
Grief, swirls, curls, fueling my red pounding shell.    

Not able to spark your fickle chuckle
Still, curséd to exist without your kind fare,  
This turns my balled fists to white knuckles
Without your warmth my heart weeps a blue glare.

One you could fix, if your heart had not split
If your mind was clear, your body unshriveled,
A call I couldn’t make with such a young grit
My heart bears the pain there that was chiseled.

Love will bind us, just as my pain abides
My heart you’ll live,‘til halt of rolling tide.

"A Silent World," by Lindsay Rogers

As I escape from hazy dreamland’s gate
And arise into all creation’s shapes,
A silent world greets me, a heavy weight,
A chasm into which my breath escapes.

I speak, and no language or sound I make,
I move, and no noise my body creates,
An existence all my own, none can break
A curse from the blind and bitter fates.

But magic is naught but machinery,
And to my head placed is bright marvel’s gift,
In detail draped is circling scenery,
And thus repaired is pyrrhic deafness’ rift.

For comforting is sure silence’s abyss,
But wondrous is music of Earthen bliss.