Sonnet II: By My Love’s Sweet Words

Posted by David Emeron on

By any song, in night, that dost thou sing,
If with thy lips shalt sing, my dearest one;
Or make to sing my soul, thy touch doth bring;
Or strong thine arms surroundeth, sing my heart.

And when doth sing thy smile, to heal, to rest;
And sing to fret the tyme away, undone
By song; yet still the finer am I blest
By music, by thy words, and by thine art.

But only thus, thy song shouldst bid me sleep–
Thy song, my shelter, sweep away the sun,
I beg of thee thy promised song, and weep
That shouldst thou hold mee fast, and ne’r us part

Until thy quiet fight–when hast thou won–
Requite the day, that thou expressed:  Depart!

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

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17 responses to “Sonnet II: By My Love’s Sweet Words”

  2. Reblogged this on theplaguefairy and commented:
    I stand in awe…
    My beloved can take my simple words and use them to make such beautiful sonnets out of them. We often sit and talk of how my childhood saturation in the humanities spurred him to study poetry to understand my world. Now the shoe is on the other neuron and my illness has affected my brain to such an extent that, while I can appreciate his work, I am unable to critically address the work and discuss the various delights of rhyme scheme and sonnet form. This grieves me terribly. It would be a much worse burden upon my soul but for the modern wonder of the internet where he has people from all over the world to share the nuts and bolts of poetry creation with. From a copper merchant in the Med to a physicist somewhere around Scandi-land, there are people finding time to make poetry and share it with each other. This eases my soul. – for somehow I can’t help but feel just a touch of sorrow and a hint of guilt that I am unable to completely share in this at the level that my sweetheart is working.

    On the other hand, I do get away with having Mad Punctuation Disease and I get to use punctuation in any ol’ way I want and no one can say anything. Hah@!
    I also don’t have to do dishes if I’m tired.

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  4. Your magic only becomes stronger, Beloved.

    Through eternity I hear your call now
    Clearly

    As I couldn’t when I was a young girl
    When weather stations and ice lollys,
    Hot summer sidewalks, forts and spaceships
    Consumed our imaginations.

    Through eternity I hear your call now
    Clearly

    Having listened always to it’s faint echo
    When on the road or on the stage
    The needs of the family, tears and solitude,
    Consumed my imagination.

    Through eternity I hear your call now
    Clearly

    Since you brought me home to you
    To lay down my tired heart and rest
    In this household made out of friends of our youth
    Which now consumes my imagination.

    Through eternity I hear your call now Clearly.

    see! I told you I couldn’t write anymore, my dear. I just think in poetry sometimes. The first 6 lines of this just came out of my fingers and I realized they could be mistaken for poetry so I decided to try to make a poem out of them but I think the forced rest of the piece, while it is true in sentiment, is forced and out of kilter. Unpleasing as poetry. It’s just that I think in it sometimes. Not that I can write it. But I do like to try if it makes you happy. I will be interested in your response. ;-}

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    • That aspect.. that story is not so forefont in this entry…. I wonder if you may not be commenting on another sonnet or sequence.

      Even so… there is in fact a fair bit of samurai, and wren, for that matter, in our own fairytale.

      That is quite honestly portrayed in many entries here. To be sure, the degree to which happiness is possible (very) as well as the degree to which such happiness is hard won (very) is a theme to which I often return. In this, dragonslayers have nothing on either of us, so to speak.

      This comment has been written on a tiny android.device (without my reading specticales) and as such may indeed contain more than the usual share of errors and omissions.

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    • It’s okay. I’m not a member of “typo”, grammar, or spelling police forces.

      Perhaps not so much in this post, but in others I have read of an amazing and deep romance.
      We all have our stories to tell. Some just make better novels than others.

      I just know when I read one of your posts, something incredible is going to consumed by my itty bitty brain; something wondous is going to touch my heart.

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    • I very much appreciate your understanding. When one has had such significant events occur in ones life, relaying them seems to create connexions and understanding with others that have been similarly blessed (or cursed.)

      This brings to light the much lampooned support-group paradigm–I myself am quite guilty of this. Yet it is due to the nature of such connexions that pathos from literature or even of that between two individuals is possible. This is, I suppose, the soul or core of empathy.

      Apart from my rather offhand stated reasons, I am not sure why I began sharing all these aspects of our lives; I am not sure I could have predicted what would happen upon doing so. Sometimes it is difficult. I try to be true to my feelings and my recollections of them. I recall, for example writing a sequence wherein I wrote sonnets from letters or notes my sweet girl had written me over the years. It was quite an embarrassing endeavour–trying not to feel as though I were singing my own praises while relating those very praises from the point of view of another (quite prejudiced : ) individual.

      It is amazing to me also what has been conjured up in the minds of readers given that I have offered nothing but written words and no photographs. Even my “avatar” such as it is conveys very little except perhaps the worst (or some might claim the best) form of “nerdiness.” Most bloggers tend to offer up more, but I deliberately offered nothing except words. This was the reason I opted for such a plain and stark theme as well. The result has been, I think, that people have summoned up their own images.

      I have, of late been curious to see what might occur if I posted a picture or two of each of us (in our youth, of course) but Mrs. Emeron will not hear of it–at least for her part–and therefore, although she has no objection to my posting my own picture, I shall match her in this and forego mine as well.

      Still, even though our bond runs so very deep–seemingly beyond all superficial elements–I believe most here would be surprised to see just how lovely was my sweetheart’s youthful appearance. And I am being quite objective in this. And for her part, she would claim the same of me, and looking back as objectively as I am able, I would not disagree–excepting that in my teenage years, I was rather an odd-looking fellow; I very much believe she dealt with what little teenage awkwardness she did possess with much more grace than did I.

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    • I would not be surprised at all to see the beauty of your sweetheart in her youth or even now. I have in my mind a picture of the two of you, then and even now, looking like Alec Guiness and Diana Rigg….sitting in a kitchen with wreaths of flowers or holly on your heads, singing and cooking and playing lutes, recorders, and such. A bit silly perhaps, but the image pleases me and adds much to your sonnets. The Carolina Cherry Blossom is an odd duck on many counts, but she is a die hard romantic.

      I decided for fun to post a mother’s day pic of myself with my grandmother and two aunts, dressed to kill. My mother took the picture of us in the side yard.

      I love blogging – and one of the joys has been the occasional connection one makes. My husband has told me if I ever post of picture of him, he will be most displeased. so no post of himself. But one of me in ancient days.

      He said the other night that no intelligent person wrote poems that did not rhyme. I cleared my throat and he said, even you sweetheart. Poems should rhyme and have a specific rhythm – otherwise, they are only sentences arranged oddly. Oh my.

      Your lovely sweetheart found my site and spoke such words, I could not believe she was writing about me. I feel all of 5 feet tall now!

      You are both so very blessed.

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    • Thank you. Will you link the mother’s day post for me?

      Regarding the pronouncements of your young man, regarding poetry. You may find this surprising, but in a sense, I agree with him. But only in a sense.

      A young man recently expressed a similar thing to me. I told him this in essence:

      I understand the sentiment, particularly regarding freeverse. After all, it can be seem, one supposes as little more than oddly formatted prose; however just as even actual prose can be compelling as well as it can lack lustre, so too can such poetry.

      It is true that rules make pressure, and pressure makes diamonds, among other things, but one cannot entirely discount beautifully ordered, indented lines arranged in an evocative fashion. So, even though I may admire a good poem in a difficult format, I also do not discount a relatively formless one. Still, there is a point wherein such things become a bit too random, then one wonders what the point is in the words at all, no matter in what form they are presented.

      In any case, Toni, your words are often quite sublime. Perfection indeed reflected in the razor’s edge of your finely attuned perception.

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    • I suppose that is why I like haiku and tanka – there are rules. I like the challenge of trying to make a picture, project and emotion in just a few words. I do enjoy poems with rhythm and rhyme. But only if they touch me in some way.

      I asked hubster if he thought he could do better than TS Eliot. He cleared his throat and dissembled. I reminded him that those who can – do. those who can’t, sit on panels or criticize or write boring papers.

      Like a feat of engineering, like the Eiffel, I admire the engineering of a good poem. I like it when all the bits fit and make something extraordinary – more than the sum of its parts.

      Here is the link to the Mother’s Day post. Of course, I have probably done it incorrectly. http://kanzensakura.com/2013/09/19/the-carolina-cherry-blossom-1959/

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