Sonnet II: Sleep and Death

And yet, thou, quiet at my side, asleep
Hast thus me graced.  Thine own sweet breath,
Thy fairest face so still, but not as death,
As once I thought the only link to keep

Us ever joined would be.   So dark, so deep
Would be our misery; our fate, beneath
A cruel, unblinking sky, would us bequeath,
Or God should grace us, but to weep;

For dreams forsaken, squandered; and to those
From which we shrank, unbidden, with resolve,
With fear, or anger; yet our lives revolve
Around the one, and only one, we chose.

Though only death was certain, dearest wife,
‘Tis better still that it began with life.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet I: No More

No touch, no sleep, no rest, no love like mine
For thee, shall ere console me in my place
Of rest.  No more shall any weight of thine
My breast console.  No more, thy fairest face,

Within my whole creation be contained.
No more shall I awaken, feel my heart
And thine, and should not feel that there be twain.
Not rhythm, nor our beings, be made to part.

No more shall flesh be moved nor move mine own
By neither wish, nor thought, nor even touch,
To such a fervent height as we have known–
As only I and thou have felt this much.

Must I, in perpetuity, endure
No more, no more, no more, no more… no more….

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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