What is my life worth?
Is it worth more than I think?
Or is it worth less?
Or is that even,
If I were to add it up,
The proper question?
What is my life worth?
Is it worth more than I think?
Or is it worth less?
Or is that even,
If I were to add it up,
The proper question?
Of late, I thought to revisit this one which is so framed, now more, in the tradition of such things. Very “chaffy” of me to mix mythologies as do I here:
In aire dost, poise thou in His image, fly
Perfection! bronzed against Hyperion’s blaze;
Exalted! at thy nadir by His rays;
With mastery! dost thou hold thy piece of sky.In aire, for thee, hath stoppt all time; on high,
At perfect flexion, as His Son displayed:
Retract, and tense, ’til once thou deign obey
His gravity, that deign thou not defy.Down! by His unseen force, to Earth art thrown;
Descend thou! as I gasp–thy devotee.
Thou! slicing air! perfection still outshone!
And twist! and roll! and turn! to all degree!
As fly thou through devoted hands alone
With thee, who hast so Godly kist the sea.
How may a challenge take so many names:
The first, a journey struck with spirit bright;
The next, a stolid, firm, determined, fight;
And then, a simple, tired tread–a game
Although the dream were dead–and next, it came
Relentless, as it yet were sanctified;
Without surrender, lest be dignified
Thus; that the game were lost? The very blame
Was hidden in the cost of keeping on
Within a blackened dream. How challenging
This fourfold path must seem, when what is gone
Is purity, which such a dream may bring.
But fivefold is the path of righteous grief,
When challenge is pursued without belief.
This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:
The will to continue on
long after ones original enthusiasm has waned
is the essence of character.
Upon a time, my love, a diary
Of paper, stained with words set down in ink;
Revealing all a boy might feel, and think,
And strive, and pray, and wonder what might be;
That, would he, worthy of thy love, decree?
On paper, yes; but also on the brink–
Withholding nothing more–profess; and think,
If then not worthy, tears he shed for thee
Would blur his ink; such tears as fell like rain
To paper; ran his words, as ran his heart,
Cascading down, as rivers, all his pain;
So mixt with joy, and hope we would not part.
Yet now, his tears, upon a keyboard, fall,
Not mixt with joy, nor pain, nor seen at all.
This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:
Wrote, of that I wrote
Within a thought once within,
Without is without.
Always it began,
As reliable as though
It ran like clockwork,
My love, did I sit,
Outside, under an awning,
Watched and listened as it rained.
And sometimes, I cried;
All my tears, all my ink, mixed;
And wrote I such things:
I will not be back until Monday!!
Weekend!!