A Sonnet Inspired by Marlowe's Faustus

[Leanne]

I too, like Faust, have sold my timeless trace, -- consider "Like Faust, I too..."
exchanging four and twenty unstained years
for the eternity in the embrace -- you have "the" on the strong stresses twice in this line, which makes for very awkward reading, especially consider the only important words here are "eternity" and "embrace" and the rest are fillers
of what before me endlessly appears. -- "of what before me" is a waste of words -- you're missing an opportunity for descriptive, lyrical language, which is after all the point of a sonnet
My deathless soul? I killed it with a kiss. -- shouldn't be a full stop here
And now a fading body slithers on
through its return to dust, to Abaddon:
perennial rapture given up for this? -- I'm sure you know already that this line is crowded and to keep the meter it needs to be rushed, which shouldn't happen

My Amaranth is gone – betrayed unto
the Jungle’s weeds. But unlike Faust, I gave
my substance for the future, my living -- if you're going to have a double rhyme at the end, you need an extra syllable so that the stress doesn't fall incorrectly on the "-ing"
for a gilded fortune. My lips accrue, -- strong stress on "a" is unpleasant
as they repent, no pity from the grave,
no peace, no hope: time is unforgiving. -- you just get away with this because of the hard caesura of the colon, but if this could be reworded into perfect meter it would be much stronger

For me, this lacks the lyric quality a sonnet ought to have -- meter should seem effortless and rhyme should pass relatively unnoticed rather than driving the poem. Remember that you are in charge of the poem, not the other way around -- if something doesn't work, pull it apart and start it again.